Patrick Murphy's glowing Marlie Giles praise explains Alabama's championship culture

When you have the captain's "C" sewn into your uniform, it comes with a lot more responsibility than the average player. You have to be willing to have uncomfortable conversations. You have to be there when your team needs you the most.

Marlie Giles' leadership has never been in question. After two potentially costly errors in Alabama's WCWS win over Nebraska, it was Giles who rallied the troops together for a meeting to get everyone to calm down.

"One of the toughest things to do nowadays as any leader knows, is to realize that the role of leader supersedes that of friend," Patrick Murphy said. "No one in here wants to correct a friend, or workmate, or a teammate. It takes a special person to be able to say to somebody, ‘That’s not the way we do it here.’ She does that. Everyone respects her for that. They look up to her."

Typically, when Alabama has needed offense, it has come from the two and three spots in the order with Brooke Wells and Alexis Pupillo. But perhaps it was fitting, in the biggest game of the season to date, that it would be the captain who came through with the biggest hit of the game. And she wasted no time doing it.

With two on and two out in the 1st inning, Giles took Jordy Frahm deep to dead center for a three-run homer to put Alabama up 3-0. It turned out it was the only bit of offense Alabama would need, thanks to another dominant performance from Jocelyn Briski.

Marlie Giles' monster swing gave Alabama an immediate edge Nebraska never overcame

Beating Briski is incredibly difficult. Beating her when she's spotted a three-run lead early in the game is next to impossible. It allows her to be aggressive and attack the zone.

“Any pitcher will tell you when you score in the first inning, it takes a lot of pressure off you for the rest of the game," Briski said. "It allows me to just trust throwing my pitches through the zone a little bit more and not trying to be so perfect. Definitely, that three-run lead took a lot of pressure off me.”

Alabama added a couple more runs for good measure, but Briski didn't need them. Fittingly, it was Giles who drove in Alabama's 4th run with a sacrifice fly to drive in a pinch-running Kinley Pate. Then, after Nebraska scored its lone run of the game on a solo homer in the 4th by Hannah Camenzind, the Crimson Tide answered with a Jena Young RBI single to push the lead back to four runs.

It was Giles' spark in the 1st inning that energized Alabama, pairing with Briski's dominance to get the Tide one win away from the championship series.

“I think it gave us a jolt of confidence, of energy, you name it. Whatever you want to say. It was huge, and the way Briksi was throwing- that’s all we needed. …That hit was big," Murphy said.

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