Alabama Rallies Around Montana Fouts, Wins in Extras over Arkansas to Advance to SEC Tournament Semifinals
Inning after inning, Alabama was leaving runners on base. Before Bailey Dowling stepped to the plate with runners on second and third in the top of the ninth, Alabama was 1-for-14 with runners in scoring position against Arkansas Thursday night.
Patrick Murphy took a moment to meet with Dowling before she stepped to the plate. She had struck out in three of four at-bats in the game against Arkansas' Chenise Delce.
Dowling said she will never forget the conversation she had with Murphy before that crucial at-bat.
"It was just all positive– smoke middle, that's what they're saying," Dowling said after the game. "I was just thinking I wanted to get it done for my team."
The fifth time, she made the adjustment she needed and came through with the key hit. Her double off the third baseman's glove scored the winning runs as No. 5 Alabama eliminated the host team No. 4 Arkansas with the 3-2 victory to advance to the SEC Tournament semifinals.
An error in the bottom of the inning proved that both runs were needed as Arkansas pulled within one and had the tying runner 60 feet away with two outs. A groundball induced by Alex Salter ended the game for the Alabama victory.
Despite getting the win, the biggest concern is the health and status of Montana Fouts. In the bottom of the seventh inning, Fouts appeared to injure her left plant leg on a strikeout. She tried to throw two warmup pitches after the injury and appeared to re-injure or re-aggravate her leg on the second warmup pitch.
Murphy did not have an update on Fouts after the game but said the plan was always to pitch Fouts for the first two games of the tournament.
As soon as the game ended, the team gathered together around Fouts, who had tears streaming down her face during Dowling's postgame interview on ESPN.
"Montana has been the leader from day one— the one that speaks up in the huddle, the one that speaks up in practice, in our team room," Murphy said. "I really think that they wanted to have her back 100% tonight. Salty came in and did a hell of a job, made some really good pitches. And then you know, we just kept rallying and finally, somebody gets the job done and it was Dowling.”
The game was looking like a replica of the classic pitcher's duel we saw between Fouts and Delce in the regular season, which Arkansas had won 2-1 in 10 innings back in April.
Before the sixth inning Thursday night, Fouts had only allowed two hits on questionable defensive plays. The hit that started the Arkansas scoring rally in the sixth was a hard grounder to Ashley Prange at third base, who gathered the ball swiftly, but newly entered Lauren Esman at first base did not get to the bag in time to receive a throw.
Prior to the injury, Fouts allowed one earned run on five hits over 6.2 innings pitched. Delce left in the ninth inning after throwing 165 pitches with 10 strikeouts.
"Both sides, the pitchers were terrific," Murphy said. "They made pitches when they needed to, got out of several jams. It was just a kind of a World Series type game at the SEC tournament and atmosphere matched it. Just a hell of a game for softball.”
Salter came in after the Fouts injury and got the win in relief. Fouts took less than a minute to herself in the dugout before returning to cheer on her teammates. She was shown giving Salter advice in the bullpen between innings.
After being thrown in at the last minute because of the injury, Salter worked out of jams in the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth innings, including stranding the bases loaded in a tie game in the seventh inning.
"My mindset is trusting my pitching," Salter said after the game. "I actually did warm up before just in case. You never know what happens in a game or if anybody needs to come in, because I know the rest of the pitchers were ready if their name was called, just like mine was. We’re just always ready when our time comes.”
Alabama will face the winner of No. 8 Florida and No. 1 Tennessee in the semifinals Friday evening when either Salter, Esman or Jaala Torrence will take the circle for the Crimson Tide after a gutsy, three-hour plus game that lasted well after midnight.
"It was just one of those games, it’s just a Bama U moment where tonight was old-school Alabama softball," Murphy said. "Three hours and 16 minutes of Bama U."
