The Alabama baseball team's 2024 season concluded on Saturday with a 4-0 defeat to Stetson in the Tallahassee Regional of the NCAA tournament.
On Friday, Alabama’s offense battled back and forth with UCF and still fell short 8-7. On Saturday, while facing elimination, the Crimson Tide bats were unable to put a crooked number up on the scoreboard and were shut out for just the second time this season.
In the home half of the first inning, Stetson leadoff batter Kyle Jones took Alabama’s Ben Hess deep, giving the Hatters a 1-0 advantage that would prove to be all the run support needed to knock off the Crimson Tide. Stetson also added a run in the third, sixth and seventh innings to extend its lead.
Overall, Hess gave up five hits and four runs, walked three batters and struck out eight over 6.2 innings. Austin Morris came in from the bullpen to pitch the rest of the game.
The Crimson Tide had several scoring opportunities in the game, but each one fell short as Alabama stranded nine men on base. Alabama's offense tallied five hits and four walks. The Tide left the bases loaded in the first inning, runners on the corners in the fourth and fifth innings, and a runner on first base in the third and seventh innings.
Alabama finished with a 33-25 overall record and a 13-18 record in the SEC in Rob Vaughn’s inaugural season as head coach, and its season came to a close in the NCAA Regionals.
"The lasting memory of the 2024 Alabama baseball team is going to be a group of fighters, a group of tough kids and a group that pulled together to do some special things," Vaughn said. "That's the stuff these guys will take with them when the pain goes. I would much rather be hurting now (at a Regional). I've had teams that can't wait for the season to end, but that's the exact opposite of this team. It hurts to see this thing end."
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