The Alabama baseball team entered the weekend hoping to play well enough to win at least one game and make the eight team SEC Tourny later this week. Might as well take a road series win over a top 20 team as well.
Alabama (31-24, 15-15) collected the series win over the #20 Mississippi State Bulldogs with a 9-7 win on Sunday in front of 7, 181 fans at Dudly-Noble Field in Starkville, MS.
Junior Will Stroup turned in another quality performance pitching eight plus innings giving up 7 runs surrendering 11 hits, no walks, and collecting five strikeouts.
“The score does not show how the game went," Stroup said after the 126-pitch outing. “I had a balk and we lost a few fly balls in the sun. We basically gave them five runs, but that is part of the game. Things like that happen in baseball. We settled down and got the job done."
Alabama took an early lead with two runs on three hits in the top of the first off MSU starter Josh Johnson. Salem started the inning with a single and stole second base before moving to third base on Belcher’s ground out. Avila and Matthes then followed with back-to-back RBI doubles as Alabama took a 2-0 lead.
The Tide put four runs on the board to knock out Johnson (2-3) in the third. Alex Avila drew a leadoff walk and scored on Bentley’s two-run home run to right-center field. It was the junior’s 12th home run of the season.
“We came out shining the bat from pitch one," Bentley said. “We are a really good team when we get the lead. This was a big win for us today. This gives us three good weekends the past month against three really good teams."
Alabama tied Florida for 6th place in the SEC standings but will enter the tournament as the 7th seed, as Florida owns the tie breaker over Alabama. Jim Wells' bunch will play in game 1 of the SEC Tournament against 2nd seeded Arkansas at 10AM on Wednesday from Regions Park in Hoover, AL.
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