SEC Baseball weekend recap: April 19-22

After another fun week of action, the SEC standings are neck and neck as we head down the home stretch of the season. Florida is 14-4 in the league after doing their thing against Kentucky, and have a commanding four game lead over the second place team(s), Arkansas and Ole Miss, both 10-8. How about that, two teams ranked in the top seven in the nation are hovering around .500 in conference play. This league is really strong.

There were a few major surprises this weekend. The first being the aforementioned Arkansas. The Razorbacks got swept on the road at Mississippi State, a team who looked dead in the water coming into the weekend.

Another surprise was Tennessee. The Vols finally got their signature win, defeating Texas A&M in a home series. The Vols are just on the outside looking in of the SEC tournament field right now, but there is still lots of baseball left.

South Carolina absolutely blasted LSU to sweep that series. The Tigers may have some major trouble brewing if things don’t get turned around fast. The Gamecocks took the first two games 11-0 and 11-4. LSU snatched the finale from Tennessee last week, and had that happen to them this week. A 6-0 lead in the bottom of the sixth turned into an 8-6 loss.

Speaking of blowouts, how about Auburn? They outscored their arch-rival 44-10 in three games. Yes, 44 runs in three games. After scoring 19 on Friday, Auburn came right back with 20 on Sunday. The rough times in Tuscaloosa these days has Tide fans asking when football starts, or if Nick Saban can coach baseball, too.

Missouri needed a series win, and they got it. The Tigers were able to scratch across the Friday and Saturday games against Vanderbilt. Mizzou’s regional chances just got much, much better.

The player of the week was the Gators’ Wil Dalton. The pitcher of the week was Justin Lewis from Kentucky. The co-freshmen of the week were Steven Williams from Auburn and pitcher Logan Chapman from South Carolina.