Alabama Baseball Loses To Florida

The Crimson Tide lost 7-2 to Florida on Thursday night in the SEC Tournament. The loss pushed to Tide to the losers bracket where they will have a 10 a.m. rematch with Tennessee. Bama beat Tennessee 3-2 in 11 innings on Wednesday afternoon. The Tide fell to 31-23 with the loss while the Gators improved to 38-19.

Dylan Smith started on the mound for the Tide and pitched five scoreless innings before getting touched for a run in the top of the sixth. Nathan Hickey hit a blast over the fence in dead center field for a 1-0 UF lead. Florida pitcher Franco Aleman was mowing down the Tide allowing just two singles through the first five innings.

The Tide had a chance in the with bottom of the sixth to catch the Gators but fell victim to some poor base running. Peyton Wilson led off the inning with his third single of the game and advanced to second on a ground out by William Hamiter. After a ground out by Sam Praytor, Zane Denton walked on a 3-2 pitch. However Wilson broke for third and was thrown out easily when the pitch was hight and outside to the left handed swinging Denton.

Smith got touched for three runs in the top of the seventh on a two doubles and a home run and exited the game down 4-0. Jake Eddington took over on the mound in the eighth and allowed three more runs on a walk, a balk, and three singles. Eddington allowed two more singles in the ninth but stranded both runners to keep the game at 7-0. The Tide did scratch some runs across in the bottom of the ninth. Praytor led off with a walk and advanced and scored on a single by Denton and an error on center fielder Jacob Young. Jackson Tate was hit by a pitch to put two runners on and Jim Jarvis lined a single up the middle to scored Denton. Tate hustled around to third where he was initially called out, but after a review was called safe. Caden Rose then flew out to center field to end the game on the wrong end of a 7-2 score.

The Tide finished 7-31 in the game, had two walks, three hit batters, seven strikeouts, and seven left on base. The Gators were 14-40, drew one walk, struck out seven times, and stranded severn runners. Wilson finished 3-4 for Bama and Andrew Pinckney added two hits in four at bats. Jarvis and Denton had the only other hits for the team. Smith dropped to 1-8 on the season after going seven innings and allowing nine hits with no walks and six strikeouts.

Bama will face a quick turnaround, playing at 10 a.m. on Friday in a rematch with Tennessee. The game was to be played at 3 p.m. but the Conference moved it due to the threat of rain in the afternoon. Some experts have the Tide already in the NCAA Tournament while others say the need at least one more win. This will be the fifth time the Tide and Vol’s have matched up this year and they are tied at two wins each so far. Bama lost one game in 11 innings and one by a score of 9-8 to Tennessee. The Vol’s are the 4th ranked team in the nation. A victory by the Tide would go a long way toward them making the field of 64. Connor Shamblin will most likely get the start on the mound for Alabama with Landon Green, Will Freeman, Brock Guffey, and Hunter Ruth on the ready to follow.

Roll Tide

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