After starting the season 9-6 and dropping out of the top 25 rankings, Alabama’s baseball team saw fit to organize a team meeting.

“We kind of had a come-to-Jesus meeting after one of the games against Lipscomb,” junior shortstop Mikey White said. “I think that is a good thing to do leading up to SEC play. It kind of gets the team rolling and gets the team focused. It gets everybody going on all cylinders.”

The Crimson Tide has lost four of its last six games after winning four in a row. After its doubleheader with Alabama A&M was canceled on Tuesday due to rain, the team starts conference play with a weekend series at No. 15 Mississippi State beginning Friday at 6:30 p.m.

“They are a solid team,” Alabama coach Mitch Gaspard said. “When you look at State, what jumps out is they are going to throw a lot of strikes, they have very disciplined, patient at-bats and as I said before, I think they feast on mistakes. They take advantage of them. That is who they are.”

Starting with this weekend’s games against the Bulldogs, Alabama will play four consecutive weekends of ranked SEC opponents.

“The big thing in our league is you have to minimize your mistakes,” Gaspard said. “You can’t have meltdowns because every game is going to be tight and the majority of games are going to be won or lost within the seventh to ninth inning.”