Alabama Softball Downs Auburn to Advance to Round 2 of SEC Tournament

After giving up a home run in the first inning, Alabama pitcher Jocelyn Briski and the Crimson Tide defense stumped the Tigers.

Alabama Pitcher Jocelyn Briski / Alabama Softball's X/Twitter

Alabama softball took down Auburn 3-2 in the opening round of the SEC Tournament on Tuesday evening in Athens, Ga. The Crimson Tide advances to the second round and will face South Carolina on Wednesday night.

Alabama was placed as the 10-seed in the SEC Tournament, a status head coach Patrick Murphy, who has won six SEC regular season championships, isn't used to.

That said, 15-seed Auburn woke the Crimson Tide and starting pitcher Jocelyn Briski up a bit in the very first inning as Tigers shortstop Nelia Peralta, who leads the team in runs this season, added one more with a blast over the right field wall. Alabama has allowed a first-inning home run in two of its last three games.

Briski has a history of struggling after giving up a run, and her beginning to this one started to raise a few eyebrows. However, like the Iron Bowl itself, all past miscues by the teams and individuals are thrown out the window.

Briski followed the trend that comes with rivalry games throughout this one as she threw over 100 pitches.

And as Briski brushed off her rough start, Alabama's offense made up for it in the early frames. After Alabama catcher Marlie Giles singled to open up the second inning, shortstop Salen Hawkins followed it with an RBI double to right center to get the scoreboard running for the Crimson Tide.

Alabama second baseman Kali Heivilin fed off the newfound momentum in the third inning with her fourth triple of the season to bring right fielder Lauren Johnson home to break the tie. Three batters later, Hawkins continued her impressive day both sides of the ball with a sacrifice fly to bring Heivilin home and increase the lead to 3-1.

"She would do that in practice," Heivilin said of Hawkins' incredible bare-handed defensive play after the game. "More than anything, I think she just trusts herself to do anything and everything. Knowing that she has Jocelyn's back and she has her back, I think that's the biggest thing that helps our defense."

The Tide's defense continued to stifle the Tigers, but that changed after Auburn right fielder Icess Tresvik brought home the aforementioned Nelia Peralta to cut the deficit to 3-2.

Nevertheless, Murphy trusted Briski to throw a complete game in this high-stakes matchup heading into the seventh frame. Briski struck out Auburn's first batter, grounded out the second and despite allowing a single, she struck out the Tigers' final batter.

On Briski's 107 pitches, she allowed two runs on six hits with three walks and eight strikeouts. Auburn's only extra-base hit was that home run given up in the very first inning.

"She made really good pitches when she needed to––and that's the key," Murphy said after the game. "They have some good hitters in big-time situations, and she got them out...Just her consistency and her poise on the mound was very good."

Alabama will play 7-seed South Carolina on Wednesday evening. 6-seed Florida will face 11-seed Ole Miss at 4 p.m. CT and the Crimson Tide and Gamecocks will go head-to-head 35 minutes after the conclusion of that game.

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