Seidl, Jarvis Lead the Way as the Tide Drown the Hornets

The No. 18 ranked Alabama Crimson Tide (14-0) demolished the Alabama State Hornets (7-8) 21-7 after taking down Samford 11-6 in Birmingham.

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Alabama starter Jackson Reynolds was credited with the win, pitching three innings and allowing five hits and three earned runs. Reynolds also recorded four flyouts and five groundouts.

Wednesday was another big offensive output for the Tide, as redshirt senior Tommy Seidl went 4/4 with four RBIs and a two-run bomb in the bottom of the second.

Senior Jim Jarvis also had a big night, recording two hits, three RBIs, a walk, and a homerun.

Alabama did this with a quiet night from freshman sensation Colby Shelton, who has nine home runs in 12 appearances before tonight and batting average leader Drew Williamson.

"We scored 21 runs in six times a bat and Colby Sheldon and Drew Williamson didn't get hit, but yeah just a really good offensive performance for us," said Alabama manager Brad Bohannon to open up his press conference Wednesday night.

Even with Alabama's offensive explosion, Alabama State had a productive offensive night in Sewell-Thomas stadium, scoring seven runs and racking 11 hits with two home runs of their own.

"But you know they put the ball in play. [...] So you know the way baseball is trending and you know, you look at the big league level kind of winds down into SEC but you got to get some punch outs. So if you want pitchers to kind of pitch to kind of soft contact and all that but if they put the ball in play 75/80% of the time it's gonna find some balls eventually so they did a good job of putting the ball in play and you know, we played good defense tonight which certainly helped slow them down." said Bohannon.

The game was a big milestone for the Crimson Tide's manager, who earned his 150th career win.

"It's crazy how fast it's gone. It's crazy how long it's taken. Again 150 I guess I hope to get 850 more but yeah, you know I'm really proud of the progress the programs made. Pretty obvious we need to take a step forward this year, really confident that that is happening. But those are just numbers, you know. Now I'm just worried about trying to get to 151," said Bohannon

Due to the weather, the game was a little wild from the get-go, with Alabama State's Jamal George slipping after fielding a grounder in the first or four players getting hit by pitches, two of which forced Alabama's Max Williams and Alabama State's Jamal George out of the game.

Bohannon was asked if he felt tensions rising during the game, and this is what he had to say,

"I mean, you can kind of tell when somebody saw this when I intentionally most of the time and that certainly is not the case tonight. I mean, you know if you see a pitcher that's hitting, like 37 times in a row, and all of a sudden your misses about four or five feet. Kind of looks a little goofy. But yeah, it's just part of baseball, especially early season."

Bohannon was also asked about the status of designated hitter Max Williams:

"Yeah, I think he's okay. They ran over and got an x-ray during the game just to be safe and he's gonna be okay. And I was it was pretty, pretty nasty. If you guys ever been hit in the elbow by a baseball, but not a lot of padding there. But, he's gonna be okay."

It's important for any team playing any sport to play with confidence, and with Alabama's offense clicking on all cylinders heading into league play, Alabama will look to ride its hot streak.

"Baseball is a really mental sport and you tell the kids just look at the stats and don't worry about your batting average and all that stuff and knowing that half of them are calculating their averages. [..] You know, we're gonna get really tested in eight days and you know, whatever our record is going to be good and whatever our you know, stats are gonna be good and it makes you feel good, you know, when those things are happening."

With Alabama sitting at 14-0 with four more games until league play, the Tide could be set to have one of their best seasons in program history with a special group of players.

Alabama will have a two-day break before playing Columbia on Friday to kick off their weekend series, tune into Tide100.9 or SEC Network+ for coverage of the game.