The Alabama baseball team battled for as long as it could on Thursday night, but No. 3 LSU was too much to handle.
The Crimson Tide completed three different comebacks in the 16-inning affair but could not rally for a fourth after LSU put up three runs in the 16th to win 8-5. The game, which lasted five hours and 25 minutes, set the record for longest recorded time for an Alabama baseball game.
“I tell them I’m proud of the way they played,” Alabama coach Mitch Gaspard said. “I thought they played their [tails] off all night. It’s baseball, you know, there’s a few inches here and there on both sides. I thought both teams competed like crazy all night.”
Alabama jumped to an early 1-0 lead in the first inning after shortstop Mikey White laced a home run to left. That score held until the ninth inning when LSU plated two runs. Alabama tied the game in the bottom half of the inning after Georgie Salem tripled and White drove him with a sacrifice fly.
Each team scored two apiece in the 11th and then traded runs in the 13th to even the score at five. LSU scored three runs in the 16th off of Crimson Tide reliever J.C. Wilhite to go up 8-5. Alabama brought the tying run to the plate in the bottom of the 16th but couldn’t produce any runs.
“We play that kind of baseball and we keep doing that and we are going to win a lot of games moving forward,” Gaspard said. “There was a whole lot more good than certainly bad tonight. You just had to lose a game in however many innings that went, especially when we had some opportunities to win.”
Alabama dropped Friday’s game 6-2. The Crimson Tide struggled to figure out LSU starting pitcher Alex Lange for most of the game until back-to-back RBI singles by Wilhite and freshman Cody Henry. Junior Will Carter started the game for Alabama and struck out a career-high six in 6.1 innings of work.
In Saturday’s series finale, the Crimson Tide stranded 14 base runners on the way to a 13-inning, 6-4 loss. Geoffrey Bramblett started the game and went five innings. He was replaced by Ray Castillo, who pitched 5.2 innings while giving up no runs and striking out five.
With three consecutive losses, Alabama is now 15-15 and 4-8 in the SEC.
