Alabama State Sweeps Baseball Team In Two-game Series

 

The Alabama State Hornets swept the Rattlers baseball team in a two-game series Tuesday and Wednesday at the Moore-Kittles Baseball Complex.

Alabama State dismantled the Rattlers 14-4 in the final meeting of the series. The Hornets decisively won the series with a combined 16 runs.

During the first game on Tuesday, the Rattlers experienced defensive lapses that lead to an 8-2 loss. The second game, on Wednesday, was a defensive battle until the 7th inning when the Rattlers gave up seven runs in seven innings, which led to a 10 run loss.

“We need to go home and regroup,” Coach Willie Brown said. “The best medicine is to go home. We need to go get quality wins. We’re learning every day, we’re a team that needs to get hitting, needs to get quality hitting, and we need to get it with the players on our roster.”

The Rattlers used the momentum they created this weekend after claiming the series against rival Bethune-Cookman, but superior Hornet defense and offense was FAMU’s undoing.

The Rattlers failed to produce hits during critical moments of the series. They earned 26 hits during the series, but left 15 men on base.

Right fielder Jarryd Reid said the team’s inconsistent play down the stretch was an issue.  

“It’s not about what we do personally, and it’s all about winning the games,” Reid said. “We need to finish games. We play Jacksonville, and we feel we can beat them. They threw their best pitching at us and we hung in there.”

The Rattlers’ errors and wild pitching gave the Hornets opportunities to gain commanding leads. The Rattlers combined for five errors during the series. FAMU’s record for the year is now 3-14, while the Hornets move to 6-13.

Catcher Daniel Lee said: “We played a close game, but we need to play great to win games. We played a close game, but we didn’t finish late in the game. Even though we lost back-to-back games, we can’t let it linger. We have to play tomorrow.”
 
The Rattlers will look to redeem themselves against the Jacksonville University Dolphins on Friday. FAMU lost the last series it played against the Dolphins.