No. 6 Alabama Softball Wins Series over No. 9 Arkansas with Complete Game from Briski

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— In her second time facing Arkansas in three days, Alabama starter Jocelyn Briski looked just as dominant as she did the first time.

Jocelyn Briski pitched a complete game with 10 strikeouts as No. 6 Alabama beat No. 9 Arkansas 4-1 on Sunday afternoon at Rhoads Stadium to secure the series win over the Razorbacks.

The only run Briski allowed came on a solo home run from Ella McDowell in the sixth inning. Other than that, the Razorbacks had trouble timing up Briski all day.

“Today was going to be a dog fight,” Briski said after the game. “Arkansas’ a great team. They have really great hitters, definitely some of the best we’ve faced this season, so it was just another opportunity to go out there and show everyone what we’ve got.”

Marlie Giles went 0 for 4 on her senior day in Saturday’s game, but when she got her opportunity at the plate in the second inning of the series finale, the Alabama captain came through with an RBI single to give Alabama the first lead of the game. Giles added another RBI on a ground ball in the fourth inning to make it 2-0 Alabama.

Alexis Pupillo added on to her team-leading RBI total with an RBI sigle in the fifth inning that provided a big insurance run at the time. Pupillo now has 33 RBIs on the season.

Right after Arkansas had scored its first run of the game, Alabama head coach Patrick Murphy called on freshman Ambrey Taylor to pinch hit in the bottom of the sixth inning. She delivered with a two-out, solo home run over the wall in right-centerfield to bump the Tide lead back up to 4-1.

“I was staying ready all game,” Taylor said. “I just get my timing down throughout the game. Murph called to me, and luckily I had an at-bat off her yesterday, so I kind of knew what to expect from her. I just went in there knowing I was doing this for my team, it had nothing to do with me.”

The series win over Arkansas (23-4, 3-3 SEC) keeps Alabama (26-1, 5-1 SEC) right in the hunt at the top of the SEC.

“To start out with a sweep on the road and come home and do that, really proud of the team,” Murphy said. “We learned that they were a bunch of fighters, really, because it was a tough game yesterday. It was 3.5 hours and back-and-forth, and things didn’t go our way a lot of the time, but they came back today and completely turned it around.”

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