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Alabama baseball rallies in 9th inning, beats Xavier with Opening Day walk-off HR
By Andrew Olson
Published:
Alabama baseball is starting the 2022 season 1-0 thanks to a 9th-inning rally capped by an Owen Diodati walk-off 2-run homer to give the Crimson Tide a 5-4 win over Xavier.
UA trailed 4-1 heading into the bottom of the 9th. Solo home runs are sometimes referred to as rally killers when the team is down multiple runs, but that wasn’t case Friday as Dominic Tamez got B9 started with a solo shot. Zane Denton kept it going, doubling to right center. William Hamiter then doubled to left center, plating Denton to make it 4-3. Caden Rose was then brought in to pinch run for Hamiter, but it turned out to not be be necessary. Diodati launched the walk-off homer to right field, capping the 4-run rally.
HAPPY OPENING DAY @owendiodati 🔥🔥🔥
2 RUN SHOT DEEP TO @BamaRightField AND BAMA WALKS IT OFF!! #RollTide pic.twitter.com/8EEwALfcia
— ChicagoGump 2.0 (@BurnerGSmith) February 18, 2022
Alabama is coming off of a 32-26 season in 2021 in which the Crimson Tide went 12-17 in conference play. UA is off to a good start in 2022.
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
