TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – No. 10 Alabama softball suffered its first loss of the season against South Alabama and later avenged the loss after taking down No. 21 Arizona for the second consecutive night on Saturday.
In the first game of the day, Alabama fell to South Alabama 2-0 in its first loss of the season to drop to 18-1. Alabama’s offense stalled out in the game, only managing just 3 hits and only drawing 1 walk in the game.
Alabama stranded a runner on third in the bottom of the third with just one out and failed to bring the runner home. In the bottom of the fifth, Alabama had runners on second and first with one out and ended up striking out and flying out to end the inning to keep the score at 2-0.
Head coach Patrick Murphy emphasized the importance of pitch selection in response to the team’s offensive struggles. “We are letting good ones go by and then swinging out of the zone, so I think being more aggressive early in the count on good pitches is going to solve a lot.”
Starting pitcher for South Alabama Olivia Lackie pitched a complete game against the Crimson Tide, allowing just 3 hits, 6 strikeouts and shutting out Alabama to get her eighth victory of the season.
Almost three years ago to the day – on March 7, 2021 – Lackie got the best of Alabama. In her performance three years ago, Lackie put up an identical performance to her one Saturday. Lackie gave up just 3 hits and 6 strikeouts while shutting out Alabama in a 1-0 victory in her outing then.
The Crimson Tide’s loss to South Alabama in 2021 was also its first loss of the season after starting the 2021 campaign 19-0.
Despite the loss, Alabama pitched well throughout the game. Starting pitcher Jaala Torrence pitched 4 innings, giving up just 2 hits, walking only 1 batter and giving up 2 runs.
Alea Johnson came in for relief of Torrence in the fifth inning, pitching 3 innings and giving up no hits and walking just 1 batter.
In the second game of the day, Alabama shutout Arizona 1-0, following up its 2-1 victory against the Wildcats Friday. Alabama continued to leave runners on base. In the bottom of the second inning, Alabama loaded the bases with one out in the inning. After loading the bases, the Crimson Tide struck out and grounded out to leave the inning empty-handed.
“A double in the gap scores three, and instead we get a strikeout and a ground ball, so those things are biting us in the butt too often,” Murphy said.
Alabama finally broke through after catcher Marlie Giles hit a home run over the right field wall in the bottom of the fourth to put Alabama on top 1-0, notching her fourth home run on the season so far.
“I just got a hold of one and I just thought it was a line drive, I definitely didn’t think it was going out, but it went out and here we are,” Giles said.
Jaala Torrence started the second game of the day as well for Alabama. Torrence pitched 5 innings, giving up 3 hits and allowing no runs. On the day, Torrence pitched a combined 9 innings and gave up 5 hits, 2 walks and surrendered just 2 runs.
“I feel like the second game our team just brought so much energy and I was able to feed off of that and we showed we were able to compete after getting punched in the mouth,” Torrence said.
Up next, Alabama will begin conference play next week as it plays host to the Florida Gators for a three-game series. The first game of the series is March 9 at 2 p.m. CT.
