Alabama Forces Extra Innings, but Loses to Tennessee in 11

Photo by Cooper Huskey

By Cooper Huskey

The Crimson Tide came close to winning the series against sixth ranked Tennessee, but but a four run inning sealed Alabama’s doom.

Before the game, the team had a moment of silence to honor and remember Alabama super fan, Luke Ratliff, who passed away the night before. It was a very moving moment that meant a lot to the people in attendance at the game.

The game started off quiet with only one run being scored in the first six innings. That run came off a solo shot by William Hamiter to the student section in right field in the fourth inning. The homerun became Hamiter’s first blast in his Alabama career. The ball was retrieved by a UA student’s dog, and after the game, Hamiter and the dog, Rory, traded balls that way Hamiter could keep his first homerun and Rory could keep a ball.

Outside of Hamiter’s dinger, defense was the star of the game for the first six innings. Dylan Smith pitched a scoreless four innings, but found himself in some trouble throughout the game. In back to back innings, Smith found himself with the bases loaded and two out. In both instances, Smith attacked the strike zone and struck out the batters to end the inning and keep the Volunteers off the scoreboard.

Jacob McNairy came in relief for Smith and pitched two good innings, and one bad one. The bad inning came in the top of the seventh, where Tennessee scored four runs to make the score 4-1. McNairy would be responsible for three runs and Brock Guffey, who came in to bail him out, would be responsible for one. The top of the seventh took quieted the Alabama fans at the Joe, however, the Crimson Tide slowly but surely began to gain the momentum back.

In the bottom of the seventh, Alabama would get one run back in the bottom of the seventh off an RBI error hit by Jim Jarvis and scored by TJ Reeves to make it 4-2. In the eighth, the Crimson Tide scored two more runs to tie the game at four. The two runs came off an RBI single by Drew Williamson and an RBI single by Andrew Pinckney. These RBIs got the crowd excited and back into the game.

No runs were scored in the ninth so the game went into extra innings. The tenth inning was uneventful so the game continued to the eleventh when Tennessee delivered the finishing blow. Grayson Hitt came in to pitch for the Crimson Tide, and two hits, three walks, and four runs later, Alabama was looking at a four run deficit with only one half inning to make it up. Unfortunately, the Crimson Tide had run out of juice, and a 1-2-3 inning ended the game.

With the loss, Alabama falls to 16-10, 2-6 in the SEC. With the win, Tennessee improves to 23-5, 6-2 in the SEC. The series continues tomorrow with the deciding game being played at 11 A.M.