Alabama Softball can reach the WCWS Championship

With the sweep win over LSU, Alabama Softball clinched the SEC Regular Season Championship and the No. 1 seed in the SEC Tournament. Is this team WCWS-bound?

Alabama Softball will play Thursday night at 4 pm CDT on the SEC Network against the winner of Arkansas and Georgia. Alabama swept Georgia this season in Athens in a surprising result. Alabama has not played Arkansas yet this season. Should they win, they have a possibility of facing Kentucky, a team that stole the series in Rhoads Stadium from Alabama.

So, now that the postseason is underway, can Alabama get to Oklahoma City and play for it all? Let’s recap the season’s observations.

The Positives

Alabama Softball was well-undervalued as a team coming into this season. Alabama was projected to finish 8th in the SEC Softball Preseason Poll. The Tide received no first-place votes in that poll of the SEC coaches. Now that they are champions, everyone has been put on notice.

Alabama strength has definitely been in the batting. In the games they have won, Alabama made opportunities for themselves and made sure to finish by bringing the runs in. It wasn’t always pretty and it wasn’t always easy to see them getting out of a hole. But, under the incredible batting of Bailey Hemphill and others, they always managed to put themselves in position to win.

Alabama was only shut out once the entire season (4/7 vs. South Carolina) and never lost by more than three runs. One of the biggest moments was against Missouri on 3/8. Down 8-3 in the fourth inning, Alabama racked up 11 runs in the next three innings to take the win from Missouri.

As for pitching, Alabama trails only behind Florida in average ERA in the SEC. Montana Fouts and Krystal Goodman led the SEC in pitching as well (minimum 10 games played).

The Negatives

However, there have been times where Alabama has not shown up and didn’t look like the focused team it usually is. In both the away series against South Carolina and the home series against Kentucky, Alabama didn’t play the consistent, business-like attitude we had experienced all season. As a result, Alabama dropped both of those series.

Some may say that the undisclosed injury to Montana Fouts was the reason for the problems Alabama suffered. The argument may hold water, as Fouts was out when half of the losses for Alabama occurred. However, if Fouts being out affected Alabama that much, then Alabama isn’t as deep in depth as many may think. How good is Alabama if we took out their two best players? It would seem Alabama would have a difficult time reproducing what it has done this season.

Can they make it?

That question will be answered by another question: Can Alabama maintain consistent success and stay healthy?

If the answer is yes, then absolutely. If Bailey Hemphill can continue to lead the bats and the pitching rotation doesn’t change at all, Alabama has a real shot of playing well against teams like Oklahoma and UCLA. This team does have the potential to get there if they play business-like every game. Even if the odds are stacked against them in a game, they will play with tenacity.

However, if Alabama loses a key player to injury, this could throw off their rhythm enough to get caught in a game or two. And in the postseason, two games is enough to get you sent home early.

For fans, the word should be cautiously optimistic. This team can make a big run for it all, but it’s gotta maintain the same success and even go a level above that to take the championship away from UCLA, Oklahoma and the like.