The Alabama softball team beat the Syracuse University Orange 20-5 Sunday to sweep the Bama Bash Tournament.

The Crimson Tide jumped out of the gates quickly in the first two innings to an 8-0 lead and didn’t let the Orange get on the board until the third inning. Although Syracuse scored four late runs, the Tide had already scored 20, and there was no serious threat of a comeback.

Perhaps most impressive, however, was the number of home runs scored for the Tide.  Alabama had three for the day and 14 overall in the tournament. For head coach Patrick Murphy, Alabama’s ability to hit was a huge key to success. “I definitely think all the hitters had a good mindset, some really good at bats,” Murphy said. “No matter who they threw out there, we basically ripped. It was just a good day by everybody in the lineup.”

Senior Whitney Larsen said she agreed. “We can attribute [hitting home runs] to Coach Murphy,” Larsen said. “I mean, he’s the one recruiting all of us, and I think he sees something special in every single one of us… I think we have a lot of power, but at the same time we have good bat control and everything you could look for in a hitter. And I think that’s one through 17, everybody’s capable of doing it.” Over the course of the Bama Bash Tournament, Alabama beat the Louisville Cardinals twice, the Syracuse Orange twice, and the University of Texas at San Antonio Roadrunners once.  Freshman pitcher Jackie Traina earned MVP honors for the tournament, with junior Cassie Reilly-Boccia and senior Kelsi Dunne also earning all-tournament honors for the Tide. The Tide scored 61 runs overall over the weekend and has now outscored its opponents 108-21. Still, Murphy said he sees room for improvement, especially after the Tide had difficulty finishing against Syracuse Sunday. “They were sky high to play us,” Murphy said.  “We know that’s going to happen.  Everyone’s going to want to play us and beat us. And they just started getting little dink hits, then everything started falling their way, and it just kind of snowballed from there… Hopefully it won’t happen again.” Indeed, Murphy said his team has no room to get cocky, even after its dominating performance to start the season. “Well, we don’t want to get too over confident,” Murphy said.  “But, I don’t think anybody’s satisfied.  Nobody’s hitting 1.000, nobody’s ERA is 0.00. We still have work to do.” Larson said much of the same. “It’s early in the season, and there’s going to be a couple of times where we’re going to have to work through adversity,” Larsen said. “At this time right now we’re not always going to produce at the times when we want to. But with practice and game experience, all of that’s going to come.” For junior Jazlyn Lunceford, all it’s going to take is time and experience. “The more we see live pitching, the better we’re going to be,” Lunceford said. “You know, different speeds, different pitches. The more at bats we have under our belt, the better we’re going to be.”