Less than 24 hours after Alabama gambled away a three-run lead in the 11th inning, Alabama faced another late push. Caretaker coach Jason Jackson had to open his bullpen door one last time when Auburn equalized in the ninth inning.
Unlike the loss to Florida, however, Alabama managed to win 7-4 in an SEC all-win or lose tournament game.
Prior to the first pitch, D1Baseball.com predicted that both the Tigers and Crimson Tide would host a regional game as both teams put on impressive performances in Hoover. While a shutout win over Kentucky and an extra-inning loss to Florida may have already cemented Alabama as a coveted top-16 seed in the NCAA tournament, an Iron Bowl win certainly doesn’t diminish his chances.
Alabama (40-18) came closer to bringing an NCAA regional to Tuscaloosa for the first time since 2006. On Friday night, UA plays loser No. 1 Florida against four-seeded Vanderbilt in a double-elimination match for a spot in the SEC semifinals.
All week, Alabama was the tournament’s best-hitting team. In 10 games, the Tide hit 31 SEC-high hits — and while he also hit the most (28), the convincing performances gave Alabama’s pitchers room for error. In the 10-3 stretch of the Tide since firing head coach Brad Bohannon, the offensive line has gone over 10 hits seven times.
Senior outfielder Tommy Seidl was the early star against the Tigers (34-21-1). He smashed a hanging breakball over the left wall of midfield at the bottom of the first half to open the scoring. In the third, he benefited from a miscommunication in flat right field for a double hit that could have been counted as a miss, and finally scored with a sacrifice flight that had to be confirmed by retest.
Seidl, who hit a base-clearing hit in extra innings against the Gators Wednesday night, stayed hot in his next at-bat with a two-out RBI single. (He was then removed from the game.) His reserve runner was then fielded by an Andrew Pinckney singles player.
Aside from letting the Tigers run with two outs in the second inning, UA starter Garret McMillan was efficient for five frames. McMillan, a Hillcrest-Tuscaloosa alum, continued a string of good starts from Alabama pitchers. He hit a season-high eight strikeouts while retaining the bullpen. He knocked out eight straight batters before Bryson Ware hit a solo home run in the sixth inning and a wild pitch cut the deficit to two.
But in the next half of the inning, the first three base runners reached out to Alabama as Pinckney and Drew Williamson notched their second RBI of the contest.
In the ninth round, freshman Riley Quick allowed an RBI single and later ran to the plate with the deciding run. Relief for just the fifth time this year, right-hander pitcher Hunter Hoopes sent Justin Kirby out and Cooper McMurray out, keeping Alabama’s SEC championship hopes alive for at least another day.
“Obviously I haven’t seen them that much in person since we played them, but I just think their pitching team was just that good,” Auburn head coach Butch Thompson said after the game. “I think overall I just find the quality and the depth of being able to officiate nine innings or a whole series, I think he did a great job with the pitching team and you can probably imagine and guess that her leadership is nice. Good, but JJ has done a very stable job.”
Nick Alvarez is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @nick_a_alvarez or email him at [email protected].