Photo Credit: rolltide.com
The No. 6 University of Alabama softball team hosts the 11th-ranked Oklahoma Sooners this weekend in the Tuscaloosa Super Regional at Rhoads Stadium. Bama is 45-12 overall, 17-7 in the SEC.
The Crimson Tide swept its opponents in the Tuscaloosa Regional by a combined score of 28-1 in three games. Bama had nine home runs in three games last weekend, with Haylie McCleney accounting for four of those.
Defensively, of the 18 innings pitched last week in three games, Bama pitchers allowed just one unearned run on five hits.
Game one is this evening at 6 PM CDT, with game two set for Saturday at 4 PM. Both games will be carried on ESPN. Should a game three be needed it will be played Saturday at 7 PM CDT. That game would be televised on ESPN2.
The Tide is 7-3 all-time against Oklahoma.
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Baseball
Photo Credit: rolltide.com
The University of Alabama men's baseball team faces the Vanderbilt Commodores this afternoon at 3 PM CDT in the SEC Tournament. The Commodores fell to the Texas A&M Aggies yesterday evening, while the Crimson Tide pulled off an exciting 4-3 win over the Missouri Tigers.
Bama has now won nine of its last 12 games, which is exciting in itself, but yesterday's win over the Tigers defined exciting. After scoring the first run of the game, the Tide found themselves behind 3-1 and looking at elimination from the tournament and ending their season. Bama was able to even the score in their half of the sixth inning, 3-3.
One inning later Will Haynie blasted one over the left field wall giving Bama the win and a chance to face a then-undetermined opponent. Bama took the game 4-3 and faces Vandy this afternoon.
"The key to the day was pretty simple -- Taylor (Guilbeau) gave us a
really good start and then the bullpen was solid on the back end," said
Alabama head coach Mitch Gaspard. "Offensively, we got a big double from Casey Hughston to get us started, Cody Henry got two huge RBI and then Haynie hit the bomb."
Bama bats have now had 14 of its 25 hits with two
outs, including three in yesterday's contest. 10 of the Tide's 13
runs have scored with two outs.
It was the third win of the season for Bama starting pitcher Taylor Guilbeau, and his first against an SEC opponent. Guilbeau, a senior, gave the Tide seven solid innings while giving up three runs. He had four strike-outs on 104 pitches. Senior Jay Shaw came in for the eighth inning with a three-up, three-down performance, and was followed by sophomore Thomas Burrows in the ninth to earn his seventh save of the season.
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Women's Tennis
Photo Credit: rolltide.com
It was a relatively easy win for the defending NCAA Doubles National Champions. Crimson Tiders Maya Jansen and Erin Routliffe soundly whipped Texas-Arlington's Angeles de los Rios and Elizabeth Thoms 6-2, 6-1 in the opening round of the 2015 NCAA Doubles Championship on Thursday.
Dropping only three games during the entire contest, Jansen and Routliffe took two of the first three games to begin the contest. The pair gave up a game then went on to win another five consecutive and the match.
"We really focused on playing our style of tennis and executing all of our shots," said Jansen. "Once we got into the match we started to feel really comfortable and that helped us build a lot of confidence. The key for us right now is to focus on every point, focus on the task at hand and keeping ourselves from looking too far ahead."
"We are continuing to go into every match with the same mindset, one match at a time," Routliffe said. "If we focus on being aggressive and keeping the opponent from finding a rhythm, we are confident that we'll have a shot at every match."
Routliffe was defeated in the singles tournament by No. 4 seed Maegan Manassee out of Cal. Routliffe managed a 6-4 victory in the first set but was unable to pull off the win, falling in the next two.
