Alabama baseball dropped its final midweek game of the season 6-1 to Troy, as the team’s hopes of hosting a regional in the NCAA tournament took a big hit.
“We didn’t play like trash tonight; we just weren’t good enough,” head coach Rob Vaughn said. “Again, it became the freebies on the defensive side of the ball and then a lack of consistent at-bats on the other half and so I think when you do that, you get beat.”
Shortstop Justin Lebron lined a one-out double into the right-center gap in the top of the first inning. However, center fielder Bryce Fowler flew out to deep center, and left fielder Eric Hines struck out to strand Lebron on second.
Right-hander JT Blackwood, the Crimson Tide’s starting pitcher, worked a quick 1-2-3 bottom of the first, picking up his first punchout of the ballgame.
Crimson Tide third baseman Jason Torres kicked off the scoring in the top of the second with a solo shot that just cleared the wall in left, his seventh home run of the season, to make it a 1-0 game.
Blackwood worked a shutdown bottom of the inning, then worked a scoreless third and fourth inning, only surrendering one hit in the process. Austin Morris replaced Blackwood in the bottom of the fifth inning and walked a pair of batters with one out and had a wild pitch to move both runners into scoring position.
Left-hander Evan Steckmesser replaced Morris and picked up a huge strikeout and induced an inning-ending groundout to strand two runners in scoring position. Blackwood tossed four shutout innings, allowing just one hit, didn’t walk anybody, and struck out two on 46 pitches.
“I thought Blackwood was outstanding,” Vaughn said. “Just really good mixing pitches, just pummeling them with strikes. Just an outstanding job by him.”
Steckmesser came back out for the bottom of the sixth and struck out a batter, followed by a walk, another strikeout and another walk to put two aboard with two outs. Fellow left-hander Connor Lehman came in relief and picked up the final out thanks to slick play from Torres at third.
Steckmesser came back out for the bottom of the seventh and surndered a leadoff single, then walked a batter on four pitches to put two runners on with nobody out. Sam Mitchell took over and allowed the tying run to come across to score on a wild pitch. With two outs, Aaron Piasecki delivered a two-run double, giving the Trojans a 3-1 lead.
Owen Sarna came out of the Crimson Tide bullpen for the eighth and surrendered two more runs on RBI singles from Steven Meier and Nolan Book, making it a 5-1 game. Bobby Alcock replaced Sarna, and it looked like he induced a groundout to end the inning, but shortstop Justin Lebron had a throwing error to allow another run to score, his 17th error of the season.
The Crimson Tide went down without a fight as Fowler, Hines and catcher John Lemm went down in order in the top of the ninth inning.
“They punched us out 11 times and put us on for free once, and we punched them five times and put them on for free eight times,” Vaughn said. “So, that became the difference.”
The Crimson Tide will now head to Columbia, South Carolina, to take on the Gamecocks in a must-win series to keep its hopes of hosting a regional alive. First pitch is slated for 4:30 p.m. CT on the SEC Network.
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