After being swept by Arkansas last weekend, the Auburn baseball team was desperate for a chance simply to win a series.

The Tigers’ 5-3 win against Vanderbilt at Plainsman Park on Saturday guarantees they’ll get that opportunity today.

Brian Fletcher and Ben Jones homered, Jon Luke Jacobs pitched into the seventh and the bullpen actually held a lead as Auburn (17-9, 3-5 SEC) ended a four-game losing streak in the conference.

“We didn’t play very well (Friday) night and I told our guys it’s important today to get back even, to get back to square one,” Auburn coach John Pawlowski said, “which means we have to go out and play better baseball and execute.”

Some notes and thoughts ...

• Strong outing by Jacobs, who went 6 2/3, giving up three runs on eights hits. He struck out six to pick up his third win of the season. He still doesn't have a loss. “I thought he went out there and established the zone early in the game and did a great job for us,” Pawlowski said. “I thought that was the difference today.”

• Auburn's bats showed up, a day after a five-hit power outage in a 12-3 loss Friday night. Fletcher and Jones both hit homers. Jones' in the sixth proved to be the difference. “I was looking fastball and he gave me a changeup, and I just kind of happened to run into it,” he said.

• Nice piece of hitting by Hunter Morris early in the third inning. Vanderbilt used a shift against the lefty but couldn't completely move the entire infield to the right side because there was a runner on second who would have easily stolen third if the third baseman wasn't in his usual spot. With two strikes, Morris grounded a ball where the third baseman would have been in a usual shift, getting it to the outfield for an RBI single.

• The bullpen looked like it might have a repeat performance after Bradley Hendrix gave up an RBI single on the second pitch he threw in the seventh to get Vanderbilt within 5-3. But Hendrix buckled down, striking out three in his two innings and pitching around trouble. He couldn't quite finish it, but Austin Hubbard struck out Curt Casali, the only batter he faced, to strand two runners in the ninth and pick up his fourth save.

• Rubber match today at 2 p.m. EDT. Vanderbilt (17-9, 3-5 SEC) will pitch right-hander Nick Christiani (3-0, 4.78 ERA). Auburn doesn't know yet, although it will probably be Dexter Price (3-0, 4.68), Taylor Thompson (1-1, 8.38 ERA) or Paul Burnside (0-2, 6.53).