When Tyler Fay entered the Alabama baseball dugout after his shutout performance, he saw the madhouse Sewell-Thomas Stadium had become.
Shirts were off in right field, a mass of Crimson Tide fans waving shirts above their heads after the “cheap concession drinks started flowing,” Alabama second baseman Brennan Holt joked.
“I was a little tempted,” Fay said when asked if he wanted to join the “Tarps off” trend, a question Alabama coach Rob Vaughn quickly shut down with two simple words.
“Absolutely not.”
Alabama baseball built an atmosphere for its first super regional home game since 2006, drawing the largest crowd “The Joe” has ever seen at 7,573, a crowd so loud that Fay could not hear his pitch-com when he first took the mound in the Crimson Tide’s 8-0 win against St. John’s on Saturday, June 6.
It’s an atmosphere Vaughn expected, one he encouraged his players to watch out for, to soak in.
“I said, man, take a second and look around and see what you built,” Vaughn said. “Seventy-five hundred people rocking, and in it and fighting and scratching and clawing and shirts off, all sorts of crazy stuff. It’s what college baseball’s all about. Those guys created a home-field advantage for us tonight.”
Vaughn couldn’t help but think back to a familiar adage, one that has followed him throughout the Crimson Tide’s postseason run: “Tuscaloosa loves a winner.”
But Saturday is not a culmination. It’s a start.
“But just like we’re not done, they can’t be done either,” Vaughn said.
Colin Gay covers Alabama football for The Tuscaloosa News, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at cgay@gannett.com or follow him @_ColinGay on X, formerly known as Twitter or Instagram @colingaytnews.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Alabama baseball sets home-field advantage vs St John’s in super regional
