SEC Softball Reset

We recognize that it’s been a while since you last joined us here for any sort of softball coverage on the website. So, let’s reset the stage here. How are things going on April 11, 2019?

No team at the moment has a longer win streak than four. The team with that honor is Florida, who are 33-9 on the season but just 6-6 in SEC play. There are currently four teams with three-game win streaks: LSU, Ole Miss, Mizzou and South Carolina. One team, Arkansas, owns a two-game win streak. Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi State and Texas A&M all won their last game, while Auburn and Georgia were losers in their last outings.

At the moment, every team in the SEC has at least 25 wins on the season. Five teams — LSU, Alabama, Auburn, Florida and Georgia own 30+ wins. The leader of the clubhouse in that department is Alabama, who’ve compiled 39 wins on the year so far. This is pretty indisputably the strongest conference in the nation right now, and while there are some teams who haven’t quite picked up a lot of conference wins, it is obvious that this league goes from strength to strength as you go down the rungs.

The clubhouse leader in the conference standings is LSU. They’re 11-4 on the year so far and part of that is because they’ve won all of their conference series so far. That included a sweep of Georgia back in late March and they took two of three from both South Carolina and Mississippi State recently. Amanda Sanchez, Shelbi Sunseri and Aliyah Andrews have been dynamite with their bats, Sunseri especially, as she is tied for the team lead in homers with Shemiah Sanchez. LSU’s pitching has been stout so far as Shelby Wickersham and Maribeth Gorsuch each have ERAs under 2.00 right now.

Alabama and Auburn, meanwhile, sit tied for second with 8-4 records in conference play. ‘Bama had been undefeated for quite a long time, but suffered their first loss of the year on March 24 to Texas A&M. Since then they’ve taken three more losses, and just lost a series to South Carolina this past weekend. No bueno for them, obviously. And things won’t get much easier with Georgia and Florida on the horizon.

Auburn, meanwhile, has been on a bit of a run. They got out to a quick start by sweeping A&M back in their first conference series. Then they took two of three from Mississippi State and Tennessee, with a series loss to Georgia sandwiched in between. The Tigers have South Carolina this weekend, which could be a very fun test for them as they try to jostle away from their in-state rivals.

The middle of the pack is a bit of a mess. Ole Miss is 7-4, Tennessee is 7-5 and Kentucky is 8-7. Meanwhile, Florida and Mizzou are each 6-6 and Georgia sits 5-7 at the moment. There’s only three games of separation in the loss column there, so only a couple slip-ups could completely reshuffle the deck.

South Carolina, Mississippi State and Texas A&M all sit 11-13 right now, each with nine losses. South Carolina has five wins while State and A&M have three, so there’s certainly some separation there. But even with that said, the Gamecocks, Bulldogs and Aggies all have at least 25 wins (the first of those three has 29). So there’s still plenty of quality top to bottom, as we alluded to before.

Needless to say there’s still a lot to be played out here as the end of the season draws near. Softball always brings the goods, and you’ll want to stay in tune down the home stretch here.