Florida Hands Alabama Its Second SEC Series Loss
The Crimson Tide lost its series to Florida Saturday afternoon, 9-2. A Florida grand slam in the top of the sixth secured the Gator's win. This is Alabama’s second SEC series loss this season.
“I don’t think the score indicates how close it was,” said head coach Patrick Murphy. “It just got away from us at the end.”
Krystal Goodman started in the circle for the Crimson Tide and put up a good performance through 4.1 innings.
“I thought Krystal gave us a shot to win again as the starting pitcher,” said Murphy.
The Gators were the first on the board. Florida’s Hannah Adams drew a walk to start off Florida’s offense in the second. Two doubles in a row would score Adams and Cheyenne Lindsey.
Florida’s starting pitcher, Natalie Lugo, kept Alabama’s bats quiet until Maddie Morgan broke up her no-hitter in the third giving the Crimson Tide a chance to score. Alabama could not capitalize.
Florida kept Alabama scoreless through three innings.
Bailey Hemphill drew a lead off walk to start the fourth inning. KB Sides singled to move pinch runner Kayla Davis to second. Kaylee Tow singled and Davis crossed the plate, Sides followed her after being aware of a missed throw at third.
Alabama did not produce any more runs for the rest of the game.
Sarah Cornell would take over for Goodman in the fifth where the Gators added one more to the board.
Shortly after taking a 4-2 lead in the sixth, Kendyl Lindaman hit a two-out grand slam to put her team up by six.
Freshman Jaala Torrence replaced Cornell in the sixth after the grand slam. She pitched six pitches to get the final out of the inning.
“[It was] a tight situation and a good team, that’s what you have to love,” said Murphy. “She’s a competitor… I thought she had really good composure. I love the K looking too.”
Florida had one more run cross the plate in the seventh to add to its total.
Despite the loss Murphy had some things to say about his team as a whole.
“There’s four stages of team building and one of them is called storming, storming can happen anytime and right now it is,” said Murphy. “But you still stay together as a team, you don’t point fingers, you look at yourself and say what can I do better? What could I have done today to help us win? And you learn from it and then you move on. And I think that’s the mentality that they’re going to take into tomorrow’s game.”
Tomorrow at 1 p.m. CT Alabama will face Florida in the final game of the series. Tune in to Praise 93.3 or watch the game on ESPN.