Bryce Eblin batted .268 during an injury-shortened junior season at Alabama.
Submitted photo
Bryce Eblin figures his name was in the transfer portal for approximately 10 days during the spring.
Sufficient time for the Alabama second baseman to envision himself attending classes, scooping grounders and digging his cleats into batter’s box dirt elsewhere.
Or, as it turns out, long enough for the 2020 Center Grove graduate to further appreciate his surroundings of the past three years.
“Alabama is a unique place just because of how everything is structured,” Eblin said. “I love going to our baseball stadium (5,800-seat Sewell-Thomas Stadium). It’s just a beautiful place to go to school.”
Last spring, 45 games into the Crimson Tide’s season, the baseball program grabbed headlines nationwide for all the wrong reasons when head coach Brad Bohannon was fired for betting activity involved with his team’s game at LSU nearly a week earlier.
The alleged wagering occurred at the sports book at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati.
Just like that, Bohannon — who had recruited Eblin to Tuscaloosa — was out.
Alabama, holding onto a 30-15 record at the time with a Southeastern Conference mark of 9-12, soldiered on under pitching coach Jason Jackson, who took on the role of interim head coach beginning with the Tide’s 11-2 victory over visiting Vanderbilt on May 4.
Offered every opportunity to crumble or simply mail in the rest of the season, Alabama advanced to the NCAA Super Regional before being eliminated by top-ranked Wake Forest.
The Tide won 13 of 19 games under Jackson, and the respect Eblin has for Jackson is among the main reasons he chose to remove his name from the portal.
Another is the school’s hiring of Rob Vaughn as Alabama’s new head coach. In six seasons at Maryland, Vaughn led the Terps to a 183-117 record and was named the Big Ten’s coach of the year in 2022 and 2023.
Time will tell how many players return to Alabama, as a number of Eblin’s teammates also entered the portal.
Eblin feels his best move was removing his name.
“I’m beyond happy that we hired Maryland’s head coach, and coach Jackson is still here,” said Eblin, who majors in human environmental sciences. “At the end of the season, I was talking to my parents, and decided to go into the portal, but I’m so happy to be back at ’Bama.
“I’ve heard nothing but great things about coach Vaughn, and I honestly believe coach Jackson is one of the best coaches to play for.”
Eblin finished an injury-shortened junior season with a .268 batting average, three doubles, a pair of home runs and 17 runs batted in. He’s seen action in 103 Alabama games over the course of his career so far, with 75 starts to his credit.
Eblin looks forward to his senior year, though at the moment he’s in a different part of the country playing baseball for the Bourne (Massachusetts) Braves of the prestigious Cape Cod Baseball League, the nation’s premier summer circuit for collegiate players.
One of six Bourne players selected to participate in the CCBL All-Star Game that took place on Saturday, Eblin does a bit of everything for the Braves; he’s played shortstop, second base and third base at different times this season.
Eblin even got to show off his 90-mile-per-hour fastball while pitching an inning of relief in Bourne’s recent 14-3 win against Cotuit.
This is the second straight summer Eblin has played for the Braves, who are scheduled to conclude their 40-game regular season with a home game against Hyannis on Aug. 2.
He’ll eventually return to Tuscaloosa to cap off his college experience, academically and athletically — opportunities he doesn’t take lightly.
“It’s hard to find a place where you feel welcome all the time,” Eblin said.
Wouldn’t you know, he was there all along.
