Alabama Softball falls...

The Crimson Tide Softball team fell 6-1 to the Michigan Wolverines tonight in Game 1 at the Women's College World Series in Oklahoma City. The Tide will play again on Saturday in an elimination game. I spent the evening at Buffalo Wild Wings here in Tuscaloosa watching the game with some people from work... while we were all frustrated, I believe Coach Murphy will have the girls ready to come out and play hard on Saturday.

Alabama is due for a national championship in a sport (the last was 2002 when the Gymnastics team won the National Title), and Coach Murphy and the Alabama Softball team are more than deserving to make a run for one in Oklahoma City this week.

The other Crimson Tide team looking to bring home some hardware is Coach Wells' baseball team who will play their opening game in the NCAA Clemson Regional tomorrow afternoon against Oklahoma State. The Tide and Cowboys are set to begin at 2:00pm and the game will be carried by CSS as well as Chris Stewart and the Crimson Tide Sports Network. Alabama is expected to start Senior RHP Austin Hyatt who will be coming off of 8 days rest and is considered the Tide's ace on the mound. I will be interested to see how Alabama plays in the absence of Junior 3rd baseman Jake Smith, who was injured on the last play of the game against South Carolina in the SEC Tournament last week in Hoover. Jake had 18 homeruns on the year, second only to Kent Matthes who leads the team with 28, and set the all-time UA record last week in Hoover for most homeruns in a season, breaking Doug Duke's record of 27 set in 1986.

After my morning in the office, I plan to come home and watch BAMA Baseball tomorrow afternoon and hopefully see the Tide roll against Oklahoma State. While I am passionate about the Crimson Tide as a whole... I am a huge fan of Coach Wells and the BAMA Baseball program. It is the sport that I have become really close to in my 3 years of working in the athletic department. They have always made me feel as part of the team... and I celebrate the wins and suffer the losses just like a true member of the team. I'm pretty excited about seeing them play tomorrow and see how they respond...

I'll write tomorrow about my thoughts and recap the baseball game. Until then "ROLL TIDE!" and goodnight!