Alabama Softball Tames the Huskies, Advances to WCWS

The Alabama softball team has punched their ticket for the Women’s College World Series with a 5-2 win over Washington on Saturday.

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After taking a 1-0 lead in the Super Regional against Washington University last night, Alabama softball just needed one win on Saturday in order to advance to the Women’s College World Series.

Things started off a little slow for the Tide, only acquiring two hits total in the first two innings. The bats came alive for Alabama in the third inning, however, with Chandler Dare, Leona Lafaele, and Peyton Grantham all reaching base before Reagan Dykes came to the plate and sent one out of Rhoads Stadium over the center field wall to give Alabama a 3-0 lead.

Dykes’s home run was followed up by a Demi Turner reaching on a single and eventually scoring on a single up the middle by Andrea Hawkins. The Alabama half of the 3rd inning ended with the Tide cruising 4-0.

Washington came to the plate in the bottom half of the third needing to string some hits together against Sydney Littlejohn, and they did just that.  In the blink of an eye, Washington had runners on by way of a double and a single of which put a run on the board for the Huskies.

One more single placed runners at the corners and Alabama coach Patrick Murphy replaced LittleJohn with Alexis Osorio.  After surrendering another run on a sac fly and giving up a walk, Osorio settled down and got out of the inning.  The third came to a close with the score being 4-2 in favor of Alabama.

Washington came up to bat still looking to even things up in the fourth.  Osorio struck out the first batter that came up for the Huskies but hit the next one putting a runner on first with one out.  The next Husky struck out swinging, but the following batter would reach on a single to third base placing runners at first and second with Washington’s leading hitter coming to bat in Ali Aguilar.

After getting to a 2-2 count, a controversial call was made when a high inside pitch caught Aguilar on the wrist but was ruled a foul ball by the home plate umpire. Washington coaches pleaded their case with the umpire for a couple of minutes but Aguilar was told to step into the batter’s box, where Osorio struck her out on the very next pitch.

Alabama added a run in the top of the sixth when Kallie Case singled to left field advancing Andrea Hawkins to third. Case was caught in a rundown between first and second base and Washington made an errant throw to first which allowed Hawkins to score from third.  With the Tide’s insurance run, the score would move to 5-2 and the eventual final score.

Osorio took all hope from the Washington Huskies as she quickly struck out the side in the bottom of the seventh to send Alabama to Oklahoma City.

Osorio was by far the hero of game two, coming in during the third inning to relieve Sydney Littlejohn, after throwing 156 pitches the night before in game one.  She showed no fatigue at all, striking out eight Huskies while only giving up six hits. Osorio finished the Super Regional with 22 strikeouts in two games.

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Alabama will square off against WCWS rival Oklahoma on Thursday.