Vaughn Reveals That Tyler Fay Will Start Game One Against Alabama State in Tuscaloosa Regional

On Thursday, all four teams participating in the Tuscaloosa Regional, which will take place this weekend, held practice sessions, with Alabama being the first to take the field. After the Tide’s hour and 15-minute practice, Alabama’s head coach Rob Vaughn, center fielder Bryce Fowler, and reliever Hagan Banks spoke to the media.

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Vaughn previewed Alabama’s upcoming regional, which will begin on Friday and features No. 2 seed Oklahoma State, No. 3 seed USC Upstate, and No. 4 Alabama State. He also revealed that redshirt junior pitcher Tyler Fay will start in Game One against Alabama State.

Alabama will open the regional against Alabama State on Friday at 7:00 p.m. The winner will advance to play the winner of Friday’s first game between USC Upstate and Oklahoma State. This will be the Tide’s third meeting with the Hornets this season, having swept them in their midweek series earlier in the year.

Vaughn was asked what makes Alabama State such a tough No. 4 seed. He praised the Hornets’ coaching staff and noted that Alabama State has won eight straight games and secured a conference tournament championship. Vaughn also mentioned that his team hasn’t faced the Hornets’ weekend pitching rotation and emphasized that once you reach the NCAA Tournament, any team is capable of beating anyone.

“Number one, they’re just playing good baseball; they’ve won eight in a row, they won their SWAC tournament, like those guys play with a lot of belief. You know Jose’ [Vazquez] is a guy that I respect a whole lot, and he’s been so good to me since I’ve been here these last few years. Branch [Kloess], the pitching coach, is a good friend of mine, so we know those guys pretty well, and I think they know us pretty well. You know the style of play for both teams is not gonna be a surprise. We know each other well.” Vaughn added “Bryce kinda alluded to this earlier like we played them also really early in the year, their playing a couple different players more consistently, we haven’t seen their weekend arms, they haven’t seen our weekend arms yet so all and all there’s some pros and cons in playing a team that you know really well but I can tell you there’s not going to be a more motivated team to come out and play us I mean you know beat us at home in game one of a regional that’s a program defining type win from them so we gotta ring the bell, we gotta make sure we show up and put our best foot forward. College baseball in the postseason, man, anybody can beat anybody, so it’s gonna be a heck of a fight tomorrow night.”

Alabama’s head coach then revealed who would start on the mound for Friday night’s game against Alabama State. Vaughn said they would respect their opponent and approach the decision the right way, which is why he’s going with Alabama’s usual Friday starter, Tyler Fay, for the opening game of the regional. Fay is 9-4 on the season, holds the third-lowest ERA (4.70) among Alabama pitchers, leads the team in innings pitched, and also tops the Tide in strikeouts with 104 this season.

“So Tyler [Fay] is gonna go out there Friday night. We’ve looked at a lot of different things, man, I’m a big believer in respecting your opponent and going about it the right way, and I think Alabama State deserves our best, so that’s what they’re gonna get tomorrow night.”

Vaughn then addressed Oklahoma State’s offensive threat. The Cowboys are second in Division I baseball in home runs this season, entering the regional with 137, just 12 behind Georgia, which leads the nation. Vaughn expressed confidence in his pitching staff and bullpen, saying his team needs to limit damage by allowing only solo home runs and not giving Oklahoma State free baserunners from walks and errors.

“I mean what our pitchers have done all year man like teams like that are gonna hit their homers like that’s just the reality of it so I think not flinching when they do and if they do you just gotta go respond, and the biggest key to power hitting teams is not putting guys on for free in front of them you know the solo homer generally doesn’t beat you it’s the walk, the error, and then the three run homer that gets you so I think being efficient, playing clean defense, and throwing a boatload of strikes and when they hit their homer don’t flinchims just like a team that can really execute the short game, they’re probably gonna get you at some point, when you’re playing Kentucky they’re probably gonna drop a crazy play on you at some point, but can you stop that or does that start to snowball, so like I said really good team shows up to play so does Alabama State and you know we’ll worry about Oklahoma State when we get there.”

Alabama will look to start its regional run on a high note with a win on Friday against Alabama State. The game is scheduled to begin at 7:00 p.m., as the Tide aim to advance past the first weekend of the postseason for the first time under Vaughn’s tenure.

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