Alabama Softball advances in Regional with 5-1 win over Albany

Alabama Softball advanced in the winner’s bracket of the Tuscaloosa NCAA Regional with a 5-1 Opening Round win over Albany. The Crimson Tide now move on to take on Minnesota, who will not be an easy opponent.

It was a sight for sore eyes for Alabama softball to have some breathing room in a game. The latter part of March and most of April was marred with tight games. You never really felt fully confident that Alabama had a game well in hand.

That all changed when Alabama opened their run to the WCWS with Albany. That was mostly due to a big 5th inning, which saw freshman Bailey Hemphill hit a ball deep into left to send two runs home. It put Alabama on its eventual final score of 5-1. It was the largest margin of victory in a weekend game for Alabama since April 1st against Missouri.

The Tide will be facing the winner of the first opening round game, Minnesota, tomorrow.

A Look At Minnesota

Minnesota probably should have been hosting a regional themselves. They are 55-3 overall this year and are a solid team. Their only blemish is that they don’t have a very strong strength of schedule, compared to Alabama. Still, winning 55 games in a season is very impressive and they have some the numbers to back it up.

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Two of their batters average in the low .400’s, while two other are in the high .300’s. Kendyl Lindaman and Sydney Dwyer have 32 home runs between them both and they are known to steal bases (43 successful attempts out of 53).

Alabama softball will see either Sara Groenewegen or Amber Fiser and both are deadly. Groenewegen has a 0.58 ERA and has gone 30-2 and Fiser has a 1.69 ERA and an undefeated 14-0 record. Groenewegen was in the circle for Minnesota’s run-rule 11-3 win over Louisiana Tech.

Alabama softball will need to be hot on the bats and likely quick as well. Minnesota’s pitchers get better as their pitch count gets higher. They are going to have to exercise good defense like they did Friday in order to move on to the Regional final.

Next: Nick on Clemson loss and NCAA Early Signing Day

Alabama will take on Minnesota at 1:30 PM at Rhoades Stadium. The winner advances to the regional final. A broadcast network has not been determined at the time of this post.