Series Recap: Alabama softball drops key road series to Arkansas 2-1

Alabama softball fell short of expectations this weekend, dropping a key road series 2-1 against Arkansas in Fayetteville.

Alabama continues to struggle through the SEC season and the latest iteration of that came this weekend against Arkansas. Alabama won the first game Friday night 6-5 after a weather delay mid-game. Unfortunately for Alabama, no rain came on Saturday and Sunday, both from the sky and the bats. Alabama fell 3-0 and 6-3, respectively. The series now puts Alabama 7-8 in SEC play. Alabama softball now has a tall order coming up for the rest of the season.

Just when the news couldn’t get worse for Alabama, the road doesn’t get much better looking forward. What does Alabama need to do to bounce back?

Urgency Needed All-Around

Alabama can no longer afford more failures at this point. It’s do or die for Alabama.

Okay, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration. It’s not expected right now that Alabama will miss being selected in the WCWS this year. After all, Alabama is still ranked. Alabama hasn’t yet dropped all three games in a series and that’s a plus in this competitive conference.

However, Alabama isn’t competing as well as it should and it’s really difficult to find out why. After all, we’ve seen the batting talent even from the freshman this year, especially Kaylee Tow. Alabama’s pitching, while not peaking, isn’t the worst in the SEC. You can’t see Alabama losing much with Alexis Osorio leading the pitching rotation. Yet, here is Alabama sitting at 26-13 overall.

Without the obvious signs, the intangibles need to considered. Consistency has been a real issue all around. The team that played Arkansas Friday isn’t the same team that played Saturday or Sunday. Alabama seems complacent to just do enough to squeak out, while other teams show they want to win and win big.

The schedule only gets larger from here on out. Tennessee comes to Tuscaloosa Saturday with a top 10 RPI. That’s followed by a road series against powerhouse Georgia and then Texas A&M at home to close the season out. If Alabama comes away with one, maybe even two, series wins here, it can be a huge boost in resume and confidence as we make it close to the postseason.

Alabama softball fans should not give up on this team. There are 10 regular season games and the SEC Tournament to build momentum heading into a WCWS appearance.

Next: Alabama Football: What we know and don’t after two spring scrimmages

As mentioned above, Alabama has a three-game series against Tennessee in a Sat-Mon schedule. Game one is at 4:30 pm. Game two on Sunday will be at 2 pm on ESPN2, with game three on Monday night starting at 6 pm on the SEC Network.