The No. 22 Alabama Crimson Tide defeated the Alcorn State Braves 3-2 on Tuesday at Sewell-Thomas Stadium in the first contest of its two-game series.
Alabama (21-13, 8-4 SEC) matched its win total from the 2011-12 season in the victory over the Braves (8-29, 8-6 SWAC). The 2011-12 Tide baseball team finished with a 21-34 record.
“That’s a good sign. We’ve still got a lot left, and we’ve hit our number from last year,” head coach Mitch Gaspard said.
Right-handed pitcher Tucker Hawley (5-2, 1.82 ERA) took the mound for Alabama and pitched five scoreless innings. He allowed only three hits and threw six strikeouts.
“I thought we pitched it really good,” Gaspard said. “I thought Hawley gave us a good start, [Taylor] Guilbeau came in and gave us a couple of innings. We wanted to stretch Ray [Castillo] out a little bit with two innings, but we certainly weren’t expecting that in the ninth.”
Second baseman Kyle Overstreet recorded two hits and two RBIs, boosting his batting average to .277. But other than the freshman’s offensive contribution, the Tide was incapable of driving home runs. Alabama left nine runners on base.
Gaspard said his players were trying to hit home runs too much instead of focusing on small ball.
One bright spot in the batting order was third baseman Daniel Cucjen’s two-hit performance in his first start for the Tide.
Gaspard said Cucjen’s impressive outing may be a glimpse into what could be an all-freshman infield.
“I thought he played well,” Gaspard said. “He had some good at bats and looked really comfortable out there. You saw the infield – possibly – for the future out there tonight.”
Alabama now shifts its focus to Wednesday for the second game in the two-game series with Alcorn State.
Freshman right-handed pitcher Mike Oczypok will have his first career start for the Tide. He will face right-hander Charles Aldridge (0-0, 54.00 ERA) on Wednesday.
Overstreet said it is important for the Tide to win midweek contests in order to stay alive in the national postseason picture.
“Coach always says if you want to host regionals or super-regionals, you’ve got to win the midweek games, so we try to come out every week, do the best we can and win those,” Overstreet said.
Gaspard was proud of the win on Tuesday, but he hopes to clean up the sloppy play before a weekend series at Ole Miss.
The second game will begin at 5:05 p.m. at Sewell-Thomas Stadium.
