After Sunday’s 12-1 mercy-rule final over Ole Miss, the No. 1 Alabama softball team swept the Rebels and tied for its second best start in program history, moving to 25-0 overall and 6-0 in conference play.
“It was awesome,” head coach Patrick Murphy said. “We scored in every inning. It seemed like anybody that got in there to hit, they did their job. They took a hit-by-pitch or walk. I thought we scattered our hits a little bit, and we took advantage of their mistakes big time.”
After two quick hits by Ole Miss, the Rebels took a 1-0 lead entering the bottom of the first inning. A leadoff home run by Kayla Braud, tough base running from Jennifer Fenton and a home run from Amanda Locke put the Tide up 3-1.
Braud, who hit her first home run of the season, said her lack of success so far has motivated her.
“I hadn’t been as successful this weekend with my short game,” Braud said. “I had a plan, I was going to sit on the inside pitch and take a hack, basically. I had been talking to [Reilly-Boccia] before the game started about approaches and she was like, ‘You know what, just go up there, be loose, be you,’ and I think that was a big part for why I was so successful in my first at bat, I was ready to go.”
Jackie Traina, Alabama’s ace pitcher, pitched all five innings, giving up two hits in the first inning then shutting down the Rebels’ bats, retiring 13 in a row.
“Of course you don’t want the game to start off like that, but I had full confidence in my team,” Traina said. “It was basically like, no, you’re not going to let this happen. You’re going to throw good pitches and make things happen. Help your team out.”
The Tide had nine hits on the day and managed to score in each inning of the game, with five runs in the fourth inning, with only one player having more than one hit on the day.
“That’s very encouraging to me,” Murphy said. “You want it to be up and down, you don’t want it to be two people back-to-back because that means somewhere in your lineup they’re doing nothing.”
Although the Tide had solid hitting and no errors, Murphy said his team still hasn’t captured a perfect game.
“I was happy with no errors today because that’s been my big beef,” he said. “The cleaner the defense is, the cleaner the pitching is. I think we’ll be fine. There are still some things we need to sharpen up a little bit. Execution could be better, just the little things.
“We haven’t played a perfect game by far. We haven’t pitched great. We haven’t played defense great. We haven’t hit great in one game. We’ve had two of the three, but not three out of the three. Its encouraging to me, its exciting to me. We need to practice, just some things we need to work on.”
