Around the Diamond: SEC

Last weekend the Southeastern conference had some crazy action with lots of excitement and drama, with one game including a benches-clearing incident resulting in 11 ejections.

There were plenty of ranked matchups including, No. 13 Alabama versus No. 17 Kentucky, No. 6 Florida versus Missouri, No. 3 Texas A&M versus No. 22 South Carolina, No. 4 Tennessee versus Auburn and No.17 LSU versus No.7 Vanderbilt.

But I thought the most interesting play of the weekend happened between No. 23 Mississippi State and Georgia on Saturday.

In the eighth inning of a 2-2 ball game, Mississippi State catcher Johnny Long tagged out Dillon Carter at home, and for some reason took exception to the slide, getting in Carter’s face and trying to step over him.

Both benches cleared and 11 different players were ejected. I am still struggling to understand why Long took such an exception on that play.

It looked like a relatively routine play, but to the commentators describing the play, it seemed to them like he had just lost his cool and had a lapse in judgment and an emotional reaction that was completely unwarranted.

Georgia went on to win that game 3-2 but Mississippi State won the following day taking the series 2-1.

In the Alabama versus Kentucky series, The Wildcats came out hot and stayed that way all weekend dominantly sweeping the Crimson Tide, putting up 20 more runs than Alabama across the three-game series.

Vanderbilt came back winning the second and third games after losing the first matchup against LSU ace Luke Holman 6-10.

The Commodores were unable to get any run support early, eventually getting to Holman in the fifth inning and putting up six runs, but it still wasn't enough.

Texas A&M took two out of three versus the Gamecocks and looks to continue their rise to the top of the rankings this weekend in a highly touted series versus the now No. 6 Vanderbilt.

On Friday, both Tennessee and Auburn came out swinging putting up 13 runs in the first two innings, before both teams' bullpens locked in and shut down the offenses the rest of the way only allowing one combined run from the third inning on, with Auburn taking game one.

The Volunteers were sparked for the rest of the weekend offensively and showed why they might have the most potent offense in the country, combining for 31 runs in the next two games clinching the series 2-1. They are returning to Knoxville to take on LSU this weekend.

No.6 Florida was surprisingly swept by unranked Missouri last weekend, but somehow the Tigers still remain unranked, whereas Florida dropped two spots to No. 8 in the country.

The Gators will have a home series against South Carolina, and Missouri will travel to play Georgia in Athens this weekend

We are now about six weeks away from the SEC tournament, and with each team set to have about six more weekend series, the rest of this SEC gauntlet will certainly shed some light on who are the contenders and pretenders.

Carson Schuler is a third-year majoring in broadcast journalism, to contact him please email cts5357@psu.edu.