No. 15 Alabama Softball Staves Off Virginia Tech to Advance to Super Regionals

The Crimson Tide won another one-run game against the Hokies to advance to Supers for the third straight season.

Alabama softball team after beating Virginia Tech to advance to Supers / Alabama Athletics

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— There's just something about Alabama postseason softball and rain delays.

After a lengthy weather delay of 3.5 hours on Sunday afternoon at Rhoads Stadium, No. 15 Alabama came out ready to play and beat Virginia Tech 3-2 to advance to Super Regionals for the third straight season and 19th time in the last 20 postseasons.

"It's unbelievable," Alabama head coach Patrick Murphy said about the accomplishment. "You don't just do that. It's very difficult, but I think it's expected. They [the players] know it. And as a coaching staff, we know it. But outside the program, this is a very difficult thing to do."

The only time Alabama has not advanced to the Super Regional round was in 2022. There was not an NCAA tournament in 2020 because of the COVID pandemic.

Because of the effectiveness of Alabama's other pitchers through the first two games of Regionals, Catelyn Riley had all weekend to sit back, watch and prepare to face the Hokies in the regional championship game. And it showed.

Riley was dominant through six innings and had the Hokies down to their final two outs before nine-hole hitter Rachel Castine hit a two-run home run to get Virginia Tech right back in the game. After the home run, Jocelyn Briski entered from the bullpen to get the final two outs, including a strikeout of the NCAA home run leader, Cori McMillan.

"That was very confident Briski," Murphy said. "That was a great sequence of pitches, too. And obviously we all know that she's a great hitter, so that was a big out. And then for her to not like drag it along, was unreal."

Riley was able to work out of jams in the second, third and fourth innings and got big help from Abby Duchscherer at first base, who turned an unassisted double play to end the sixth inning.

"Duchscherer made some hellacious plays at first base," Murphy said.

It was a pitchers duel through four scoreless innings between Riley and Virginia Tech ace Emma Lemley. Salen Hawkins and Brooke Ellestad started a fourth-inning rally with back to back singles. A walk to Duchscherer loaded the bases with one out.

A fly ball to left field was too shallow to score Hawkins from third, so the inning's hopes rested on true freshman Audrey Vandagriff. She drew a four-pitch walk with an emphatic bat slam to bring in Alabama's first run of the game. In the next at-bat, sophomore Lauren Johnson blooped a ball into no-man's land between the shortstop and left fielder, which scored two more runs with two outs to make it 3-0 Alabama.

"I just want to get things done for our program and our team and just to put the ball in play," Johnson said. "And good things happen, as you saw today."

The Crimson Tide was unable to add any insurance runs after that fifth inning, but Riley and Briski didn't need them as they combined to limit a powerful Virginia Tech offense to just two runs with the help of a strong defense.

"Everyone knows I'm not the biggest strikeout pitcher in the world," Riley said. "I'm going to let our defense work and trust them to get outs. And that is exactly what they did."

No. 15 Alabama will face No. 2 Oklahoma in Supers. The Sooners have won four straight national championships, but Alabama won two of the three games in the regular season back in April.

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