Alabama softball enters postseason without Montana Fouts, but with diverse staff

For the first time since 2018, Alabama softball enters an NCAA postseason in the AMF era — After Montana Fouts — and does so with a team that went just 10-14 in SEC play. Fouts, a two-time first-team All-American who led the Crimson Tide to last year's Women's College World Series in Oklahoma City, isn't the only megastar, face-of-the-sport type player to lead coach Patrick Murphy's program.

But he's fielded a few without a program icon for a centerpiece, and this is one such team. Alabama (33-17) hosts an NCAA Regional tourney this weekend for the 19th consecutive season, opening against USC Upstate on Friday at 3:30 p.m. CT (ESPN+). Also competing in the Tuscaloosa Regional are Clemson and Southeastern Louisiana.

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Despite Fouts' absence, pitching has largely carried the Crimson Tide this season, with hitting very much being the sore spot. And Murphy believes the diversity in the pitching staff he's assembled can help it advance through regional play. He speaks of the staff as if it has a Frankenstein quality, with various parts and personalities summing up an effective and dangerous whole.

"They're all different, which is great. We have the power pitcher ... we have a finesse pitcher, a curveball pitcher, we have a dropball pitcher, we have a really good changeup pitcher. So they're different," Murphy said. "And it's really hard to prepare for five different pitchers. You can't flood your hitters with all that information, because they'll just explode and they're not going to remember who the hell is who. We've got five different looks that we can throw out there."

Leading the staff is Kayla Beaver, who brings a 16-8 record and an ERA of 1.78 into the tournament. Murphy credited pitching coach Lance McMahon for building a deep pitching staff that's improved and been responsive to coaching, and said there have been just five poor starting pitching performances in 50 games on the season.

"He's done a hell of a good job with a very unproven pitching staff. He did it last year, walked in, and Montana was there. If he didn't play his cards right, Montana would've said, 'Who is this guy, and why should I listen to him?' And (this season) was the complete opposite," Murphy said. "He said 'Tell me what you need, tell me what you want.' And they went from there."

Alabama's offense — it's been held to two runs or less 18 times, and lost 10 of those games — will look to find some 11th-hour footing this weekend. Murphy noted a similarity between UA's football and men's basketball seasons.

"It's so weird how our season has somewhat mirrored football, somewhat mirrored men's basketball. Because at times, both those teams were written off, and so were (we)," he said. "We're still standing, and we've got a long ways to go."

Tuscaloosa News columnist Chase Goodbread is also the weekly co-host of Crimson Cover TV on WVUA-23. Reach him at cgoodbread@gannett.com. Follow on X.com @chasegoodbread.