SEC Weekly Roundup (Mar. 8-10): Playtime is Over

In the final weekend before conference play starts, every team looked to pad their resume with some fairly easy matchups. 

That backfired on Kentucky who lost their weekend series to Kennesaw State dropping the first two games of the series 13-1 (8) and 10-2. 

Missouri split a four-game series with Purdue Fort-Wayne, while Florida, LSU, and Auburn dropped single games to Saint-Mary’s, Xavier, and Austin Peay. 

But those were the seven losses on the weekend. Here are some of the highlights from all the wins. 

Florida very nearly dropped the series to Saint-Mary’s if it weren’t for the heroics of Colby Shelton in Game 1 with this walk-off, 3-run homer. 

The same goes for Auburn who needed this walk-off home run by Mason Maners in Game 1 against Austin Peay. 

Texas A&M remains the only unbeaten team in the conference after a weekend sweep over Rhode Island. But they had to work for it on Sunday with this walk-off hit from Hayden Schott. 

Dakota Jordan of Mississippi State homered in all three games against Evansville over the weekend, including this 462 foot blast. He’s homered in four straight games and six of the last eight. 

Georiga leads the conference in runs scored thanks to hitting six grand slams their past six games. 

It’s worth mentioning that Peyton Stovall returned from injury for Arkansas and homered in his first game back. 

Pitching Standouts

Many pitchers across the conference had outstanding weekends. 

Ryan Prager for Texas A&M tossed 7 shutout innings against Rhode Island with 13 strikeouts. 

Luke Holman continues his dominant start with LSU striking out 10 over 6 scoreless, hitless innings against Xavier. 

Gage Jump racked up 10 strikeouts as well for LSU against Xavier over 5 innings with just 3 hits allowed. 

And to round out the LSU rotation, Thatcher Hurd struck out 9 over 5 innings on Sunday with just 4 hits and a walk allowed. 

Carter Holton is getting on track for Vanderbilt as he struck out 11 batters in 5 innings. Bryce Cunningham followed that up with 11 strikeouts on Saturday over 8 innings with just 4 hits allowed. And then on Sunday, Devin Futrell tossed a complete game shutout. 

The bullpen has been a problem for Vanderbilt early on, but one way to reduce that issue is to have dominant starters who go deep into the game. 

Tennessee’s AJ Causey struck out 12 over 6 innings against Illinois. 

Liam Doyle made his first career start with Ole Miss over the weekend and struck out 8 batters in 3.1 innings against Morehead State. 

SEC Power Rankings

Tier 1

1. Arkansas

2. Texas A&M

3. LSU

4. Tennessee

Tier 2

1. Vanderbilt

2. South Carolina 

3. Florida

4. Alabama

5. Georgia

6. Auburn

Tier 3

1. Mississippi State

2. Ole Miss

Tier 4

1. Kentucky

2. Missouri 

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