Upon further review, Auburn is heading to the SEC Tournament semifinals.

Third-seeded Auburn rallied from an early deficit to defeat 11th-seeded Ole Miss, 8-7, on Thursday afternoon at Bogle Park, holding on for the win after a nail-biting seventh-inning jam. After the Tigers erased a 6-2 deficit to stake an 8-7 lead in the fifth, Maddie Penta worked out of a bases-loaded situation to close the door on the Rebels and send Auburn one step closer to an SEC championship.

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Penta loaded the bases with one out in the seventh before striking out Paige Smith to put Ole Miss down to its final out. Savana Sikes stepped to the plate and was struck by Penta’s pitch, sending the tying run home. Auburn coach Mickey Dean challenged the call, and the SEC replay center overturned the decision, ruling that the ball did not cross into the batter’s box, and thus Sikes leaned into the pitch to draw contact.

With Sikes back at the plate and the run taken off the board, Penta fell behind, 3-0, before throwing three consecutive strikes to strike out Sikes and end the game.

The strong finish by Penta came on an afternoon during which the potential SEC Pitcher of the Year struggled with her command and experienced an uncharacteristically shaky performance in the circle. She was pulled from the game in the third inning, when Ole Miss plated six runs to overcome an early 2-0 Auburn advantage.

Penta, who entered the game with a 0.96 ERA, hit an Ole Miss batter and issued a one-out walk to put two aboard in the third. Both runs scored when Lexie Brady doubled to right-center field and tied the game at 2-2. Another single off Penta put runners on the corners for Aynslie Furbush, who put the Rebels in front with a two-run single to center field that made it 4-2.

That was enough for Dean to pull Penta from the game, but Ole Miss wasn’t done in the inning, as Jalia Lassiter pushed the score to 6-2 with a two-run home run off Annabelle Widra. That closed the book on Penta’s start, as she allowed five runs, four earned, on five hits while walking three, hitting two and striking out one in 2 1/3 innings.

Widra eventually got out of the inning and calmed things down for Auburn in the circle, surrendering just one more run in the fourth. Meanwhile, the Tigers began to mount their comeback at the plate, scoring three in the bottom of the third thanks to a trio of errors by the Rebels. Auburn loaded the bases with one out in the inning before pushing a run across and cutting into the Ole Miss lead after an errant throw following a fly ball to right field. Two more scored after Aspyn Godwin reached on a throwing error by Ole Miss second baseman Keila Kamoku on a routine groundball, cutting the Rebels’ lead to 6-5.

After Ole Miss got a run back in the top of the fourth, Auburn completed its rally in the fifth when Icess Tresvik tied the game with a two-run home run that made it 7-7 after an innin-opening walk to Bri Ellis.

Auburn reclaimed the lead a few batters later, when Rose Loach poked one through the right side to score Abbey Smith from third. It was Auburn’s eighth run of the game, tying the program record for most runs in an SEC Tournament game. The Tigers had an opportunity to add some insurance runs in the frame, but an inning-ending double play saw Makayla Packer thrown out at third before an additional run could cross the plate.

Dean and Auburn turned to Penta again in the sixth, as the right-hander reentered the game and shut the door on the Rebels. She worked around a two-out hit-by-pitch in the sixth before escaping the bases-loaded situation in the seventh, as Auburn advanced to the SEC Tournament semifinals, where it will face either 10th-seeded South Carolina or second-seeded Georgia on Friday.

Tom Green is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Tomas_Verde.