re: Bama Baseball 33-24 (13-17) (2023-24)

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Alabama baseball suffered a 5-3 loss to top-ranked Arkansas on Friday evening at Sewell-Thomas Stadium. Following the opener, the 16th-ranked Crimson Tide moved to 22-12 overall and 4-9 in Southeastern Conference play.

Arkansas belted back-to-back homers in the first to take an early 3-0 lead. The Hogs then followed with a pair of runs in the third to make it 5-0, where the score would stay until the home half of the eighth. In that eighth, Alabama scratched across three runs. Bryce Eblin and Gage Miller started the rally with back-to-back singles followed by consecutive RBI-singles from Ian Petrutz and Justin Lebron. Following a walk to load the bases, the Tide added another tally on a TJ McCants sacrifice fly and had the tying runs on base with one down, but a strikeout and a groundout ended the inning at 5-3, the eventual final.

Hagen Smith (7-0) earned the win for Arkansas, striking out six, walking three and allowing two hits in his 6.0 scoreless frames. Gabe Gaeckle recorded the final five outs of the series-opener to register his sixth save of the season. Ben Hess (3-3) was charged with the loss, allowing five runs on five hits and three walks with eight strikeouts in 5.0 innings of work.

From Head Coach Rob Vaughn
"I do not believe in moral victories – at the end of the day we lost 5-3 at home and that's not something that we'll ever be okay with. But I saw something different from our kids tonight. Our competitiveness was elite at the plate; those guys competed their tails off while they were in the box. We didn't do that at Kentucky or against South Alabama, but we went out there and competed tonight. We didn't get it done, but when I see a team that is coming in and battling each day the way that we did tonight, then we are going to be just fine when the dust settles."

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