William Hamiter's Late-Game Heroics Propel Alabama Baseball Past Rider, 3-1

For the majority of seven innings, Alabama baseball fans had seen this movie before — junior Dylan Smith mowing down the opposition with little-to-no run support.

Until right-fielder William Hamiter stepped up to the plate, with two outs and center fielder Caden Rose on third base, and cranked a ball over the right-field wall to give the Crimson Tide a 3-1 victory over Rider on Saturday afternoon at J.C Love Field at Pat Patterson Park, extending Alabama's season for at least another day at the Ruston Regional.

"Man, that was a big boost right there for the team," Smith said postgame. "I felt like we didn't bring it all the way today but when he hit that home run that put a spark in us to go ahead and finish this thing and go out strong. We didn't want that to be our last game."

Smith, who was starting his 16th game of the year, gave up a run on an RBI groundout from center fielder Sean McGeehan in the first inning but that was all the offense the Broncs could manage against the right-hander.

Smith (1-8, 4.13 ERA) tossed the first complete game of his Alabama career, to go along with seven strikeouts, zero walks and only seven hits on 116 total pitches, which was a season-high. The Stafford, Texas product also produced 16 groundouts from the Rider bats.

"I don't even know why I'm talking with you guys," Crimson Tide coach Brad Bohannon said. "Dylan Smith was the story of the game... He was just amazing. I can't say enough about him. I never really thought about going to the bullpen."

A double to deep-left field by McGeehan in the ninth with one out provided the Crimson Tide with a scare but Smith then proceeded to strike out catcher Brian Skettini and get designated hitter Scott Shaw to ground out to first base un-assisted.

Meanwhile, Alabama's bats found a little more rhythm on Saturday recording seven hits compared to the four in the 8-1 loss to NC State on Friday. Three of those were extra-base hits from Rose, third baseman Zane Denton and left fielder Jackson Tate.

The Crimson Tide finished 2-for-10 with runners in scoring position and left 11 batters stranded. Prior to Hamiter's blast and in the middle of the fourth inning, Bohannon was shown on the broadcast motivating his players with a fiery speech in the dugout.

"It's no secret we haven't been great offensively the last three or four weeks," Bohannon said. "I don't think we brought the right mentality to the plate in the first half of the game. I really just challenged our guys to show me some fight. These kids have showed a lot of fight this year. I kind of felt like the first two or three innings that Rider was more excited to play than we were — maybe they just had more to play for, and I shared that in layman’s terms to our team.

"Happy we were able to do enough but we have to get some more hits and get more efficient. You gotta get more than 6-7 hits to put up some crooked numbers so those are areas we have to get better at."

In that aforementioned fourth inning, Rose appeared to have an infield RBI single but runner interference was called on teammate Drew Williamson to end the frame.

“I didn’t get a good look at it, but just talking to our staff, it sounds like it was the right call,” Bohannon said. “That’s tough on the base runner. As soon as the ball is put in play, you want to run as hard as you can, and you have to give the defender a clear opportunity and path to the baseball. It sounds like Drew didn’t do that.”

Alabama was able to chase Rider starter Frank Doelling (5-2, 3.35 ERA) off the mound in the seventh two at-bats before the home run by Hamiter. The junior left-hander was credited with the loss after hurling 6 1/3 innings, only allowing two earned runs on three hits and five walks.

Broncs left fielder Kyle Johnson hit two of the three doubles that Smith allowed.

The Crimson Tide now awaits the loser of the Wolfpack and Louisiana Tech, who play against one another Saturday at 6 p.m, to see who it faces on Sunday afternoon in a second elimination game (2 p.m, ESPN3).

"Really excited to get our program's first regional win in a while," Bohannon said. "Glad we get to keep playing another day."