Sophomore hurler Taylor Thompson had his finest outing as an Auburn Tiger on Saturday afternoon as the right-hander took a no-hitter into the seventh inning and a shutout into the ninth as Auburn evened its series with Ole Miss and kept its SEC Tournament hopes alive with an 11-1 win.

The Tigers (27-24, 11-15 SEC) are currently tied for 10th place with Tennessee, over whom they hold a tiebreaker. They are two games out of the final spot for the conference tourney.

“Taylor obviously set the tone on the mound,” Auburn head coach Tom Slater said. “Every time we scored, Taylor went back out there and put up a zero.”

Thompson (3-5) was nearly flawless for the first 6 1/3 innings, allowing just two walks and striking out four before allowing his first hit, a line-drive single with one down in the seventh. For the game, Thompson surrendered just four hits and four walks, striking out six.

“I was able to spot my fastball and that was the main thing working for me today,” Thompson said. “It was good that I had my secondary pitches working for strikes and I felt like I had good command today.”

Auburn took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first on Hunter Morris’ RBI single that scored Trent Mummey,who had singled to lead off the inning, stole second and made a heads-up play to take third on Mike Bianucci’s strikeout in the dirt.

Brian Fletcher’s eighth home run of the season capped a three-run third inning for Auburn as the freshman outfielder put one into the Auburn bullpen in right-field to make it 4-0.

Mummey had walked to lead off the inning, stole his second base of the game (and 18th of the year), moved to third on a wild pitch and then scored when Morris reached on an error.

Fletcher then belted Auburn’s third home run of the weekend.

“It was real important for us to come out and get some runs on the board to make it easy on me and the team,” Thompson said.

Auburn broke the game open with a five-run fifth, highlighted by Joseph Sanders’ home run to center. The Tigers once again capitalized on poor defense by Ole Miss as three of the runs in the inning were unearned.

David Cunningham led off with a single and went over to third as Justin Hargett’s sacrifice bunt attempt ended up with a throw into right. Ryan Jenkins then doubled in Cunningham and Hargett.

Three batters later, Morris singled to right, bringing Sanders to the plate, who collected his third home run of the year.

Ole Miss (32-20, 13-13 SEC) starter Drew Pomeranz (4-2) was tagged for nine runs (three earned) on nine hits and a walk, striking out four in 3.2 innings.

Sanders’ first-inning single extended his hitting streak to 15 games, the longest of his career.

The two teams close out the series at 1:30 p.m. today.

Auburn will send junior rightie Luke Greinke (4-3, 4.09) to the hill, while Ole Miss will counter with another junior rightie in Cody Satterwhite (3-5, 5.13).