Alabama upsets Ole Miss in opening game
HOOVER, Ala. -- No. 11 seed Alabama upset No. 6 seed Ole Miss 6-1 in the opening game of the 2015 SEC Baseball Tournament.
Alabama's Geoffrey Bramblett (8-3) pitched a complete game, striking out a career-high 10 batters.
"I thought Geoffrey did a tremendous job," said Alabama coach Mitch Gaspard. "For game one, I don't think we could have asked for a whole lot more. For our bullpen, a couple of those guys threw a lot of pitches this last weekend against Vanderbilt, so to give them one more day's rest was big there. It put us in a good spot and a good frame of mind for our hitters as well."
The game was scoreless until the fifth inning when both teams brought runners across the plate. Chandler Avant stole home to put the Crimson Tide on the board first. Alabama added another run when Casey Hughston singled to score Georgie Salem.
Ole Miss responded in the bottom of the fifth when Errol Robinson singled to bring Kyle Watson across the plate for the Rebels' only run of the game.
Alabama scored four more runs in the top of the seventh inning. All six of the Crimson Tide's runs in the game came with two outs.
"We're still breathing," said Alabama shortstop Mikey White. "We're just going to keep fighting until we're done. It's a lot of fun playing with this team because there's a lot of fight. We haven't had the best record but we've had a lot of fight."
The Crimson Tide improved to 31-26 while the Rebels fell to 30-26 on the season.
Alabama now enters the double-elimination portion of the tournament and will face No. 3 seed Texas A&M tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. ET/9:30 a.m. CT on SEC Network. With the exit from the SEC Tournament, Ole Miss now waits to find out about a possible destination for the 2015 NCAA Tournament. The field will be announced on Monday, May 25, at 12 p.m. ET/11 a.m. CT on ESPNU.