No. 1 overall seed Alabama blanks LSU in Game 1 of Tuscaloosa Super Regional
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No. 1 overall seed Alabama continued to steamroll its way toward Oklahoma City with a 7-0 blanking of SEC rival LSU in Game 1 of the Tuscaloosa Super Regional on Friday night.
The Crimson Tide machine improved to 53-7 this season and now stands one last victory from punching its ticket to the Women’s College World Series. Bama will face No. 16 seed LSU (40-18) in Game 2 on Saturday (3 p.m. ET, ESPN) and another victory would send the Tide to Oklahoma City with a chance to play for its second national championship.
Alabama’s lone softball national title came in 2012, but 14 years later the Crimson Tide are making a huge push to get back on top of the mountain.
Leading that push is star pitcher Jocelyn Briski, who blanked the Tigers on Friday night with a stellar performance, allowing only 1 hit in 7 shutout innings while striking out 11. Briski didn’t walk a batter.
After pushing across 2 runs in the first inning to take immediate control of the game, Alabama kept adding on. Alexis Pupillo belted a solo home run to right field in the third inning to put the Tide up 3-0, before Bama broke it open in the fourth on Jena Young’s 3-run double.
Alabama put the finishing touches on Friday night’s win by scoring another run in the fifth inning on a throwing error.
That was more than enough offense for Briski, and the Tide also played error-less softball in getting to the brink of that treasured trip to Oklahoma City.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
