No Unlucky 13: Alabama Baseball Squeezes Out Dramatic 8-7 Victory Over Florida
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — March 27, 2015, 2,550 days.
That's the last time the Alabama baseball team had managed to pull off a victory against Florida, as the Gators' winning streak in the series had reached 12 games.
But not 13.
Aided by a gutsy squeeze play, Alabama scored twice in the ninth inning, with third baseman Zane Denton getting the game-winning RBI against a five-player infield shift, for a dramatic 8-7 victory at Sewell-Thomas Stadium on Sunday afternoon.
Alabama's last win against Florida had been 12-9 in 10 innings on March 27, 2015, in Gainesville.
"Get the ball in the air," DenThe Nton said was his approach when he looked up and saw five infielders as Florida brought in the right fielder.
He didn't, though, driving a hard ground ball where no one was standing on the right side.
"Feels great," added Denton, who was 3-for-5 with three RBIs.
Sophomore center fielder Andrew Pinckney started the rally by taking a pitch square on his knee. He limped to first as the potential tying run when sophomore second baseman Bryce Eblin singled him to third.
With one out, junior shortstop Jim Jarvis dropped down a bunt on the third-base side, in front of the runner and reliever Blake Purnell (2-1), to score Pinckney, and set up Denton's game-winning hit to right.
"Jim Jarvis is a left-handed batter and we had first-and third," Alabama head coach Brad Bohannon explained. "Jim is a really skilled bunter and traditionally you want to safety to the first base side because he first baseman is holding the runner.
"I told Jim, facing the sidearm pitcher the ball is running away from you, it's really hard to get that pitch on the outer-third of the plate and get that it back to this side of the field."
So Bohannon gave him the green light to bunt wherever he thought best. He put it right inside the third-base line, leaving Purnell able to only swat at it in frustration.
At first, the game almost looked like a continuation of Florida's 13-6 victory Saturday night, when the Gators outscored Alabama 8-1 over the final five innings.
Florida (15-5, 2-1 SEC) plated two in the first inning on back-to-back doubles by Sterlin Thompson and Wyatt Langford, with a fielding error scoring the second run.
That combination struck again in the fourth on back-to-back home runs. Thompson's was a rope down the right-field line, but Langford's shot to left ended up in the parking lot across the street. It was his third in two days and eighth of the season.
Unlike the first two games of the series, though, this time it seemed like Alabama (13-8, 1-2 SEC) always had an answer.
In the second inning, Alabama loaded the bases on walks, and with Pinckney's fielder's choice scoring one run and plating another on a throwing error.
In the fourth, the Crimson Tide again tied the score, this time 4-4, with a leadoff walk drawn by senior right fielder Tommy Seidl and junior left fielder Owen Diodati knocked the first pitch he saw into the right-field stands for his fifth home run of the season.
Alabama took its first lead of the weekend in the fifth when Eblin stroked a leadoff double to left. On a soft single up the middle by Denton, the Florida shortstop got to it late and made a bad decision to try and throw to first, the run scoring on the error.
After getting Alabama out of a two-error jam in the seventh, reliever Dylan Ray couldn't duplicate it in the eighth and was pulled for senior right-hander Jacob McNairy (4-0). After UF's Colby Halter reached on a leadoff walk, Jud Fabian barely cleared the left-field wall for a two-run home run, his eighth of the season.
Denton closed the gap, though, in Alabama's half of the inning with a solo home run to left, his seventh of the season.
No. 9 Florida won the first two games of the weekend, but the Crimson Tide felt it was just a hit away from winning the series. Regardless, it was the first time anyone on the Alabama roster knew what it felt like to beat the Gators.
"We learned a lot [this weekend]," Bohannon said. "When we play good baseball, we can pay with anybody."
This story will up updated with photos, box scores and a video from the postgame press conference
