No. 7 Alabama Sweeps Through First Day at Crimson Classic with Two Shutouts

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— It took a little bit for Alabama's offense to get rolling on Friday, but once it did, it was hard to stop.

Behind two shutout starts from Jocelyn Briski and Vic Moten and a late explosion from the offense, Alabama swept St. Thomas and USF to win two games on the opening day of the Crimson Classic at Rhoads Stadium.

Junior Lauren Johnson provided the power with a 2-RBI double that allowed No. 7 Alabama to run rule South Florida 8-0 in five innings in the second game Friday night. The Crimson Tide beat St. Thomas 2-0 in the first game.

Alabama was finally able to string together some at-bats in the bottom of the fourth inning against USF. Freshman Ana Roman got the rally started with a deep ball out to left field. It was technically ruled an error since the ball bounced off the left fielder's glove, but Roman hustled to get to third base on the play. She was driven in on an RBI single from Salen Hawkins.

A few batters later, Audrey Vandagriff provided some cushion for Moten to work with if she needed it with a bases-loaded single that drove in two runs to make it 3-0 Alabama.

That momentum at the plate carried over to the fifth where the Crimson Tide's first four batters of the inning reached base with hits. Alabama scored five runs in the inning with Johnson providing the knockout punch.

"The one inning where we kind of exploded, we were waiting for it, and we finally got it," Alabama head coach Patrick Murphy said after the game.

Alabama's only offense in Game 1 came three batters into the game on a two-run home run from Alexis Pupillo. The Tide only mustered four hits off of St. Thomas starter Ella Cook in the game.

In her first game of the season without the contraints of a pitch limit, Briski had a career performance in the circle with a new high of 14 strikeouts, clearing her previous best by five. She did an excellent job of keeping the batters off balance. For her seventh strikeout of the game in the third inning, Briski changed speeds from 70 mph to 53 mph within the same at-bat.

". It felt nice to be out there and not have a pitch limit in the back of my mind," Briski said after the game. "Still going out there with the same mentality of being efficient, throwing strikes, just trying to limit balls, free passes. Felt like I did that tonight."

Briski did give up her first walks of the year but continued to battle through any time St. Thomas runners reached base. St. Thomas brought the winning run to the plate in the seventh inning after a one-out single and ball in the dirt moved the runner to second base. Briski rallied to get the next two outs.

Alabama (16-0) remains undefeated on the season and will be back at Rhoads Stadium on Saturday for two more games starting with Kent State at 11 a.m. CT.