TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Vanderbilt rallied from a 4-1 deficit, scoring four unanswered runs and Jack Armstrong and Russell Brewer came through on the mound to lead the Commodores to a 5-4 win over Alabama Sunday afternoon at Sewell-Thomas Stadium.
The Commodores salvaged the final game of the three-game series to improve to 16-4 overall and 1-2 in Southeastern Conference play, while Alabama dropped to 16-2 and 2-1 in league action.
Vanderbilt snapped a seven game losing streak to the Crimson Tide and also snapped Bama’s 18 game home winning streak.
VU trailed 4-1 in the fifth before rallying back to score three runs to tie the game at 4-4. Aaron Westlake led off with a single and Curt Casali walked to end the day of UA starter Taylor Wolfe. Andrew Giobbi bunted both runners into scoring position and Connor Harrell hit a sacrifice fly to center to score Westlake. Joe Loftus singled and Anthony Gomez hit an infield single up the middle that scored Casali from third. Loftus would then score and tie the game on Drew Fann’s grounder to third that Jake Smith threw away trying for the out at first.
Commodore starter Jack Armstrong pulled off an impressive individual defensive play with one out in the sixth inning and the go ahead run at first base. Josh Rutledge hit a comebacker to the right of the mound that Armstrong fielded and with no one covering first, he ran to the base and dove with his glove to tag the base and beat Rutledge to the bag. That essentially ended the Alabama threat in the inning as Ross Wilson weakly grounded to third for the final out.
Armstrong (3-0) gave up four runs, one earned, on eight hits in 6.1 innings with three strikeouts and three walks.
Vanderbilt took the lead in the seventh on a RBI groundout by Drew Fann to make it 5-4.
Russell Brewer, who hasn’t allowed a run of his own all year, shut down the Crimson Tide offense, holding them to a hit over 2.2 scoreless innings with two strikeouts and a walk. He earned his third save of the season and the 15th of his career. He has now thrown 11.1 scoreless innings in seven appearances on the year.
VU took a 1-0 lead in the first inning scoring on a passed ball. Brian Harris singled to leadoff the game and Jason Esposito walked to put the first two batters on. Both runners advanced on a wild pitch and then Harris scored on a thrown that got past catcher Cody Trotter.
Alabama tied the game in the bottom half on Clay Jones RBI single up the middle. Taylor Dugas led off with an infield single, moved to second on Ross Wilson’s single and then scored on Jones single.
The Crimson Tide took advantage of three Commodore errors with two outs in the fourth to score three unearned runs to take a 4-1 lead. Jon Kelton reached on an error by Brian Harris at short, stole second and scored on a RBI double by Cody Trotter. Brock Bennett singled through the left side to score Trotter and then scored himself when his hit went under Aaron Westlake’s glove in left and rolled all the way to the wall.
The Commodores will return home for a five-game home stand starting with Lipscomb on Tuesday night at 6 p.m. VU will host Wright State on Wednesday at 6 p.m. and then take on Kentucky in a three-game series over the weekend.
Photo by Jimmy Jones
