Alabama Baseball’s 2023 Season One to Remember Despite Super Regional Loss

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — The season may have ended just short of where the Alabama baseball team wanted to be, but it concluded as one for the books.

The top-seeded Wake Forest Demon Deacons were the better team in the Winston-Salem Super Regional, sweeping Alabama in two games to claim one of eight treasured spots in Omaha, Neb. In the deciding second game of the series, Wake sent the baseball high and far to the tune of nine home runs. That output was too much for the visitors.

From the beginning of the spring, and since the end of last season, the Crimson Tide’s goal was to get back to the NCAA Tournament. Reaching that goal came with no shortage of adversity. Alabama met it head on, and reached that goal, and then some.

In just over one month following the dismissal of former head coach Brad Bohannon, the Crimson Tide locked up its first 40-win season since 2010, its first regional hosting spot since 2006 and its first super regional appearance since 2010. The run stopped just short of the College World Series, but it was the first time Alabama came within two wins of Omaha in 13 years.

Some teams might have folded. The adversity faced by the Crimson Tide was equal parts unprecedented and unheard of. Instead, interim head coach Jason Jackson took over leadership of the club and helped guide the experienced squad to some of its best successes in a decade.

Some of those veteran players, whose Crimson Tide careers concluded with Sunday’s defeat, spoke on what it meant to take to the diamond in crimson and white.

“It means so much,” first baseman Drew Williamson said. “I’m so thankful to God for the opportunity to just be able to play here, and to be able to play on a team like this group of guys. I love every single one of them. They mean so much to me. This coaching staff, university, everything about it. The amount of growth and resilience that you have to build playing here for five years, I’m just thankful to the university. I feel like I’ve grown as a person since I’ve been here. I’m forever thankful for that.”

Williamson came back for a final year in 2023 and cemented himself as a leader for the squad.

Star shortstop Jim Jarvis touched on the aspects of the team and program that make Alabama home for him. The infielder and leadoff regular is a native of California, but has become one of the faces of the 2023 team.

“I got really lucky that the coaching staff here took a chance on me,” Jarvis said. “I can’t really put it into words. I’m just really thankful for the opportunity to get to play with my best friends. I became good friends with pretty much everyone that was around the program, and they’re the greatest people I ever met… I used to get asked if I’d get homesick, being 30 hours from home or whatever it is, but it’s impossible to [at Alabama]. Everyone here’s family. Everyone’s looking after you. This is a place I can for sure call home for the rest of my life.”

Williamson and Jarvis weren’t the only players to make waves for Alabama this season. Freshman third baseman Colby Shelton hit 25 home runs, far and away a school record for a freshman. He came within three of tying the single-season school record regardless of classification. Right fielder Andrew Pinckney was one of the most hyped players in the league coming into the season, and he lived up to it with top-of-the-line playmaking on offense and defense. His laser-sharp throw to cut down a Kentucky runner at the SEC Tournament was one of the best plays of the entire campaign. His mammoth home run against Troy in the regional round of the NCAA Tournament underscored his offensive capabilities.

Another great storyline was the emergence of an adversity-laden pitching staff. Luke Holman emerged as the ace of the group from a bullpen role in 2022 and the midweek starter’s role at the beginning of 2023. Garrett McMillan’s return from injury to level the Auburn series in the regular season, and then beat the Tigers again in Hoover, means he will go down in Iron Bowl rivalry lore. Jacob McNairy’s final walk off the mound at Sewell-Thomas Stadium in the Tuscaloosa regional final is a moment that will live on in the long and storied history of Alabama’s home field. Alton Davis II was one of the best closers in the conference as a freshman.

The moments, like the players, were ones for the ages. The bad throw in the regional against Troy that kept that game alive will be talked about forever. Holman’s epic pitchers’ duel against Nicholls ace Jacob Mayers was one of the premier mound battles of the college baseball season, considering the youth and stakes involved. The series wins over Vanderbilt and Texas A&M in the regular season showed the world that Alabama was the real deal. As late as mid-May, hosting wasn’t even a thought, and then it was a reality. The Joe had its best crowds in years. Omaha was on the horizon, and even though the Crimson Tide didn’t make it that far, it was a heck of a journey nonetheless.

The 2023 team overcame so much. That is as special as any moment or big play. As Jackson has said on multiple occasions, the Crimson Tide had every reason to phone it in, and didn’t. The difficulties came from unexpected places. The difficulties were large in magnitude. It didn’t seem to matter. When the bell sounded for each round, Alabama hopped off its stool, ready to go. In doing so, this season’s team has helped reestablish a standard in which reaching the College World Series is an attainable goal.

So, yes, the season may have ended just short of where the Alabama baseball team wanted to be, but it will forever be remembered as one that transformed the program.

See Also:

What’s Next for Alabama Baseball Interim Coach Jason Jackson?

Alabama Baseball’s Historic Season Comes to a Close in Super Regional Loss to No. 1 Wake Forest