Inside the Tide: My God, A Freshman!

Another week and another six victories for the Crimson Tide. This was the most impressive week Alabama softball has put together yet in my eyes.

The UAB game seems to be almost the same every single year. It is the first week or two in the season and we travel to Birmingham to play at the Blazers’ field. They have a nice field, but that is all it is. The way the sport has grown over the past decade, especially in this state, to build a new softball facility without permanent stands or a standard functioning press box is mindboggling to me. My advice to any university looking to update or build a new stadium for this sport: spend the extra few dollars to do it the right way. This has always been a great game for the fans to see but the fact that UAB has an underwhelming facility for fans and yes, even the media, really takes away from the environment.

Now that I got that out of the way, UAB was one of the toughest challenges of the season to this point. That is the biggest game of the year to the Blazers, as is the Alabama to most programs throughout the sport. It was Jackie Traina’s roughest outing of the year, but she battled through and her three-run bomb in the top of the first was probably the difference in the game.

The home opener was as dominant of a game as you could ever see in the sport. The bats were clicking on all cylinders and Leslie Jury continued her impressive performance in the circle. 21-0 with a two-hit shutout to go on top of it is a pretty good way to open up your season at the best softball stadium in the country.

That win set the tone for the weekend and the Tide breezed through the rest of the Bama Bash until a little bit of a challenge on Sunday falling behind for the first time on the week and coming back to tie and then take a 6-1 lead in the bottom of the sixth inning against Winthrop.

I have to take a minute to talk about Haylie McCleney. McCleney became one of the best players in the Southeastern Conference when she stepped on campus at the Capstone. The words of the great Larry Munson seem to be most appropriate – “my God, a freshman!” – you would think she is a senior by the way she plays.

Haylie led the team last week in runs, hits, doubles, runs batted in and Sports Center Top Ten plays. It probably reminds some Alabama fans of the start by Kayla Braud her freshman season in 2010 and I just want to take a second to compare the two at this point heading into the fourth week of the season in their respective freshman year just to show you how special this kid from Morris, Ala., is…

	Braud '10	McCleney '13
Games	14	16
Batting Avg.	.487	.604
On-base %	.523	.617
Hits	19	32
Runs	14	24
Doubles	2	6
Home Runs	0	3
RBI	7	14
Stolen Bases	7	15

 

It is truly unbelievable. Braud's freshman campaign ended up being one of the best in Alabama history, rivaling even the best years from Kretschman and Morgan. Braud's .505 batting average in 2010 is still the school record, but McCleney might have something to say about that. One of the main UA softball slogans is "tradition never graduates" and that continues to hold true with the endless passing of the torch.

Incase you missed it, here is McCleney's Top 10 catch 

Six more games this week, all within the friendly confines of Rhoads Stadium. Keep an eye on the Thursday night make up game with South Alabama. The Jaguars seem to improve more and more every year and are off to a 13-1 start this year and already have two wins against SEC teams (Mississippi State and Ole Miss).

Look forward to seeing you all out at the Rhoads House this week. Six games in four days! It will be a grind but some exciting stuff lies on the other side (Florida and Tennessee in the same week). Until next time, ROLL TIDE!!