A look at the Tallahassee Regional: University of Alabama

  • Photo: SportsLogos.netConference: SECRecord: 34-22(15-14)NCAA Appearances: 24Seed: 2

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Trevor McNaboe
May 28, 2014

The University of Alabama comes into the Tallahassee Regional boasting a No. 2 seed after an early exit in the first round of the Southeastern Conference tournament against the University of Kentucky.

Memories of Tallahassee are fresh for the Crimson Tide as last season they were in the exact same regional last season where they finished 1-2 overall.

Bama is one of teams in a loaded SEC that made it to the regionals this year and is probably the biggest wildcard of this regional.

Series wins against ranked teams University of Tennessee (No. 29) and University of Kentucky (No. 20) and series split with LSU (No. 6) show that the Tide can compete with the best of them.

Follow that up with losses to Southern Mississippi twice and losing the last two series they played going into the post season and you have quite the dilemma as a fan of the Crimson Tide.

Unlike the other three teams in this regional Alabama does not have one offensive player that is heads and shoulders above the rest statistically.

Alabama relies heavily on the homerun ball to manufacture runs as they come in at 17th in the nation in home runs with 40 and are led by junior outfielder Ben Moore who has nine on the season.

Senior first baseman Austen Smith leads the team in both batting average (.316) and runs batted in (36), along with hitting six home runs.

Alabama has two main starters that they’ll send out to the mound for this regional in junior Spencer Turnbull and junior Justin Kamplain.

Turnbull has a 5-6 record in 14 starts, however although he has a sub-.500 record he has the third-lowest ERA on the team with a 2.28.

Kamplain has the best record on the team coming into this regional with a 6-3 record in his 14 starts and is tops on the team in strikeouts with 66.

Overall, Alabama will play a tough Kennesaw State team in the first game of this regional, depending on which Alabama team shows up they have a very realistic to challenge and make a run in the regionals and further, and have just as likely a chance to end up 1-2 this season just as they did in 2013.