No. 9 seed Alabama baseball, led by starting pitcher Tyler Fay, opened its run at the 2025 Southeastern Conference Tournament with a 4-1 win over No. 16 seed Missouri at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium on Tuesday. The win improves the Crimson Tide to 41-16 overall, as Alabama advances to the second round of the SEC Tournament. The Tide will play 8th-seeded Tennessee Wednesday at approximately 1:00 pm.

Fay (1-2) picked up his first win of 2025 on Tuesday, and deservedly so. The redshirt sophomore tallied a career-high 6.0 innings while matching his career-best strikeout total with six punchouts. Fay’s lone blemish was a solo home run in the third, as the big right-hander scattered five hits while issuing just one walk. Matthew Heiberger relieved Fay in the seventh, managing a pair of outs before Braylon Myers stranded the tying run at third to end the inning. Myers allowed just one hit while striking out two in 1.1 innings of relief. Carson Ozmer took the baseball in the final inning, leaving the bases loaded to notch his 17th save of the season.

Justin Lebron reached base in all four of his plate appearances, finishing 1-for-1 with an RBI single and three walks. Kade Snell also produced an RBI knock as part of a two-run fourth, as his run-scoring single gave the Tide its first lead of the afternoon. Will Hodo was 0-for-2, though the senior worked a walk and lifted an important sacrifice fly in the seventh. Brady Neal was one of two Alabama players to contribute multiple hits, going 2-for-4 with a solo home run. Brennen Norton also managed two hits in the nine-hole, closing his day 2-for-4.

"Every time he touches the baseball he gives us a chance to win," Tide Head Coach Rob Vaughn said about Fay's effort." I know ourr team is very comfortable playing behind him. Man he's such a competitor. He's tough. he's all those things you look for out of a starting pitcher,. Really proud of how he executed today, really proud of how we grinded that game out."

"Everything was feeling pretty good," Fay said. "I went out in the first inning and I kinda didn't have to think about where the ball was going. Just really fluid. The slider was working. The infield behind me was working hard. they were making a lot of good plays, so I think just having that confidence today and going out there in a tight game I had a lot of energy, a lot of juice."

The Tide and Vols played a three-game series March 20-22 at Sewell-Thomas Stadium. The Tide knocked off the #1 Vols 6-5 in the first game, but dropped the next two by scores of 10-7 & 9-2.