AUBURN, Ala. — Both teams came away with something positive from Plainsman Park on the final day of the Iron Bowl of baseball Saturday: Alabama saved face, while Auburn made its best NCAA tournament case.

The No. 10 Crimson Tide salvaged a 13-3 win Saturday evening but not before Auburn captured the series with a 3-1 victory earlier in the day in the completion of a suspended game from Friday.

It was Auburn’s second victory in the series since 2004 and its first since 2007. The Tigers took three out of four games against the Tide this season but now have to wait anxiously to see if they will be selected for the NCAA tournament field of 64, which will be released a week from Monday.

“The stomach’s going to be unsettled the whole time,” Auburn third baseman Joseph Sanders said. “Who knows what’s going to happen? But hopefully we did enough during the year to hopefully get a shot to do something.”

It will be close. Despite an 11-19 conference record, Auburn (31-25) had an RPI of 31 heading into Saturday according to the projection Web site WarrenNolan.com, making it a borderline candidate for the postseason at best. The Tigers’ strength of schedule ranked 12th.

“I thought coming down the home stretch, our goal was to finish strong,” said Auburn coach John Pawlowski, whose team won four of its last five after struggling for over a month. “I certainly don’t think we hurt ourselves here down the stretch. ...

“There’s a lot of baseball still yet to be played and a lot of things are going to have to fall our way. And certainly there can’t be any upsets. We want the top seeds to obviously win (their conference tournaments).”

The Tigers hurt their chances by failing to qualify for the SEC tournament at Regions Field in Hoover, Ala., this week, which is reserved for the top eight teams in the conference. Auburn finished 10th.

Asked if the SEC was strong enough that one of the four teams that didn’t qualify for the conference tournament — Kentucky, Auburn, Mississippi State and Tennessee — could earn a berth to the NCAA tournament, Alabama coach Jim Wells paused, listed off the four teams to himself and answered bluntly: “No.”

The Tide (37-17, 18-11) has no such worries, entering the double elimination tournament as the fourth seed. It will play fifth-seeded South Carolina at 9:30 p.m. ET Wednesday.

Alabama heads into the tournament on a roll, having won 20 of 26 games since April 1.

The Tide also found its hitting stroke in the series finale after scoring only three runs in the first two games. Jake Smith went 4-for-5 with five RBIs and Kent Matthes blasted his 27th home run to lead a 16-hit barrage.

“It was important to win,” Wells said. “I’ve never seen an offensive team be ‘on’ for 15 weeks. ... Sometimes it can last longer than two games, but thankfully we bounced back in the last game and played well.”

Matthes’ homer tied the school’s single-season mark set by Doug Dukes in 1986.

“There have been a lot of great players play baseball here,” Matthes said. “And to share the single season home run record means a lot.”

Starter Adam Morgan (4-1) went the distance in the seven-inning game, shaking off solo home runs by Sanders, Brian Fletcher and Tony Caldwell to strike out 10.