Tigers Head To Georgia To Open Up SEC Season - AuburnTigers.com - Auburn University Official Athletic Site

Tigers Head To Georgia To Open Up SEC Season Auburn is second in the SEC with a .349 batting average

March 18, 2010

Auburn opens up its Southeastern Conference schedule on Friday when it plays Georgia at Foley Field in Athens, Ga., at 7pm ET. Auburn enters the three-game weekend set with an 11-5 overall mark while Georgia stands at 8-9.

"A new season begins on Friday with SEC play," Auburn Head Coach John Pawlowski said. "This is another typical SEC year where I don't know if there are any teams or favorites that stand out more so than others. Everyone has had a pretty good pre-conference run. Some teams have played some good competition to get them ready and I think Georgia is one of those teams."

Auburn enters the weekend as the second-best hitting team in the league with a .349 team batting average, led by Jr. OF Brian Fletcher's .421, which is second in the league. The team has popped a league-best 25 home runs, led by Fletcher's seven, and is also in the top two in the league in slugging percentage (.566), on base percentage (.429), runs scored (146), hits (202), RBI (137), doubles (41), triples (five) and total bases (328).

Auburn will keep the same rotation this weekend that it used last week at Arizona State, starting So. LHP Cory Luckie (0-0, 7.45 ERA) on Friday and Jr. LHP Cole Nelson (3-0, 3.74) on Saturday while waiting until after Saturday's game to determine its' Sunday starter.

Georgia will start So. RHP Michael Palazzone (3-1, 7.85) on Friday, Jr. RHP Justin Grimm (1-1, 5.40) on Saturday and Sr. RHP Jeff Walters (0-1, 8.83) on Sunday.

Friday's game will air live on CSS with Matt Stewart handling the play-by-play and Brian Jordan the color analysis.

Game times for the rest of the series are 3pm ET on Saturday and 2pm on Sunday.

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