It was a typical week two of college baseball for the SEC with a heavy dose of the usual out-of-conference domination mixed with some head-scratching losses.
While it’s fun to see upsets in college baseball–and we’ve seen plenty this year–the best upsets are usually at the expense of an SEC team.
Mississippi State, Auburn, and Texas A&M Take Losses
For the second weekend in a row the defending College World Series champions took one on the chin, and this time it came from Northern Kentucky who took down the Bulldogs 7-6 on Friday night and out-hit them 11-4. However, the Bulldogs did bounce-back to win the weekend series.
Mississippi State, who is just 4-3 to start the year, recovered to win the series but will need to play better in upcoming games against Southern Miss (x1), Tulane (x3), and Texas Tech (x2).
After last playing baseball in March 2020, the Ivy League came to play this past weekend.
Yale nearly swept Auburn in a double-header on Saturday but instead settled for just one extra-innings win, as Auburn squeaked by with a series win.
But the biggest black eye for the conference came in College Station where Penn took 2-of-3 from Texas A&M, shutting them out 1-0 on Friday and beating them 8-5 on Sunday.
Texas A&M wasn’t in College Baseball Nation’s projected Field of 64 and Auburn was one of the last four in, so they can’t afford weekend losses like these before conference play.
Arkansas Falls Short in the Showdown Against Stanford at Round Rock
The SEC was part of the premier matchup of the weekend as Arkansas took on Stanford in the Round Rock Classic.
After a fantastic start to begin his collegiate career, freshman Hagan Smith was not nearly as sharp on Sunday against one of the best teams in the country, only lasting 2.1 innings giving up 2 earned runs on 6 hits and 2 walks with 3 strikeouts.
That’s all the Cardinal would need as they went on to win 5-0, and it could have been a lot worse as they out-hit Arkansas 13-4.
Arkansas continues to struggle offensively as they struck out 15 times against Stanford. They threatened a couple of times late in that game, including a bases loaded and no out situation in the 9th, but couldn’t push across a single run.
Stanford outplayed Arkansas in every facet of the game and looked like the superior team–granted it’s a one-game sample size in the second week of the season.
Highly touted freshman Peyton Stovall has struggled to get going at the top of the Arkansas lineup with just 3 hits in 22 at-bats. He sat in the second game of the double-header on Sunday–a game they won 6-4 over Louisiana.
Tennessee Making a Statement in Early Going with Blowout Wins
While we tend to focus on the upsets, sometimes we forget about the teams who are just taking care of business and winning the games they should. That’s exactly what the Tennessee Volunteers have done so far.
Tennessee is 7-0 to start the year against a schedule including Georgia Southern, Tennessee Tech, UNC Asheville, and Iona. They’ve outscored those four opponents 117-7 … ONE-HUNDRED-AND-SEVENTEEN to SEVEN!
This past weekend the Volunteers swept Iona by scores of 27-1, 29-0, and 12-2 (7).
Tide Struggle to Get on the Scoreboard Against Top-ranked Texas Longhorns
Alabama traveled to Austin, Texas to take on the number one team in the nation and came back home without a win and scored just 1 run in the series. However, the first two games were close and the third was as well until the late innings when Texas pulled away for a 6-1 win.
The weather played a huge factor in the series for both teams as it was very cold; the ball didn’t travel well in the air or very fast on a damp turf. On Saturday, Alabama hit three or four balls that are likely out on most days in most ballparks which can partially explain the struggling offense.
Texas struggled to score as well against Alabama’s pitching staff but came up with a run when they needed it winning 1-0 on Friday on a wild pitch and getting a couple of 2-out RBI hits on Saturday in a 2-0 win.
Despite the series sweep, the Tide proved they can hang with the best in the country.
Top Performances from the Weekend
When you have weekends like Tennessee had, there is bound to be someone who puts up ridiculous numbers and that player was Trey Lipscomb. On Friday he hit for the cycle going 5-5 with 3 runs scored, 9 RBI, 2 doubles, 1 triple, and 1 home run.
On the weekend he went 10-12 with 3 doubles, 2 home runs, 1 triple, and 14 RBI.
South Carolina’s Andrew Eyster was 4-5 on Friday with 3 runs scored and hit a home run on Saturday. He’s hitting .500 on the season with 3 bombs.
Hunter Barco had one of the best starts of the year striking out 12 Georgia State batters on Friday over 6 innings allowing just 1 earned run on 3 hits and a walk.
The MLB Draft prospect featured great command of his low 90s fastball that topped out at 95 MPH and a great breaking ball at 79-81 MPH that kept hitters off balance all night in what was a very entertaining game.
Even though it was a rough weekend for Texas A&M, Micah Dallas put together a brilliant outing on Sunday in the first game of a double-header. The Texas Tech transfer allowed just 1 hit and 1 walk over 8 shutout innings with 10 strikeouts.
One of the SEC bats I was most impressed watching this past weekend was Florida’s leadoff hitter, Colby Halter. He was 8-13 on the weekend against Georgia State with a pair of home runs and 7 runs scored. On Saturday he hit 2 doubles in the same inning.
Most Exciting Win of the Weekend
The Kentucky Wildcats are off to their first 7-0 start since the 2012 season after sweeping Western Michigan this past weekend.
That perfect record was in jeopardy on Saturday as they trailed Western Michigan 12-4 going into the bottom of the 7th.
They scored 2 runs in the 7th, 5 in the 8th, and then tied it with a single run in the 9th before walking it off–in a bit of a weird fashion–in the 12th inning.
Here are highlights from the exciting comeback win:
Ten SEC teams are ranked in this week's Top 50.
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