At long last, the time has come for the Auburn Tigers to make a push into the SEC tournament. They have certainly earned the six seed, finishing the season with a 36-18 record, one of the best team-wide batting averages in the conference and a top-tier pitching staff to boot.The tests are only just beginning for the Tigers, though, as on Wednesday, they will face 14-seed LSU at approximately 9 p.m. ET. Butch Thompson, the Tigers’ veteran head coach, previewed the tournament during a recent press conference.“I’m excited,” he said. "This week is the first week of us trying to get an opportunity to win a championship, so we’ll put our best foot forward to try to do everything we can to win game one, and we’d love to stick around for four games to make a run at this.” The Tigers, coming off a series loss against Georgia last weekend, currently rank behind (from top to bottom) Georgia, Texas, Texas A&M, Alabama and Florida. Georgia and Alabama have both beaten the Tigers in a series this year, and the Tide even went as far as to sweep the Tigers back in March.Despite such high-level competition, though, Thompson is confident that his team has what it takes to take home the championship, even though the Tigers have yet to win an SEC Tournament in this century.“Our program has not won this tournament since 1998, so we made a commitment today that we would be all hands on deck and play this like you’re pursuing a championship,” he said. “This is great training. We’re looking forward to it and excited to see our guys go compete.”Because the Tigers did not find out who their opponent would be until less than 24 hours before they play them, and partly due to a general care for his players’ experience, Thompson said he would make sure that his team has the opportunity to be in the stands for Tuesday’s matchup between Oklahoma and LSU, which LSU won 6-2.Additionally, Thompson shared that there is one player in particular that he is hoping is able to make a big impact: catcher Chase Fralick, especially since the SEC Tournament has ABS, an automated ball/strike challenge system that has been unavailable to teams during the regular season.“I think [ABS] is great,” he said. “And I think Chase Fralick needs to be ready to go. It seems like the catcher has a huge, huge impact. I ask our guys to watch absolutely as much as you can watch today, and that'd be part of our pregame stuff at breakfast in the morning when we get together.”The Tigers have an opportunity to make a splash in the SEC tournament before heading to the NCAA tournament later this month, but it will certainly be a grind to survive in the SEC tournament’s brutal single-elimination format. If the Tigers can get on a run, though, they will be hard to stop, even for teams that bested them during the regular season.Sign up for our free Auburn Tigers newsletter and follow us on Facebook and X for the latest news!Add us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow