Most Southeastern Conference teams would be content to win two out of three games over the weekend. The No. 1 Commodores just aren't one of them, and given the way they lost to Alabama on Sunday, it is easy to understand why.

"(Taking two out three) feels worse when you lose the last one of the series, and we've done that twice now," said coach Tim Corbin, whose squad also lost the finale to South Carolina last weekend. "I think what hurts most is that you could see the light at the end of the tunnel that you could sweep it."

The Commodores (29-5, 7-5 SEC) led 3-2 going into the ninth and were one out away from the sweep when closer Casey Weathers surrendered a game-tying single. Vanderbilt was held scoreless in the ninth and the Crimson Tide (20-14, 5-7 SEC) came back with two more runs in the top of the 10th, the first coming on a double steal.

"Everyone was yelling. It was so in your face that it just was surprising," Corbin said. "(Weathers) was in his routine...He just got caught with his eyes straight down into the ground. He was too locked into the hitter and couldn't believe his eyes where (Matt Bentley) was."

Still, Corbin thought the "Comeback Commodores" would find a way to win, especially when David Macias singled, and Pedro Alvarez walked to set the table for the team's three and four hitters.

"There wasn't one ounce of me that thought we were going to lose that game," Corbin said. "I thought (Dominic) de la Osa was going to throw one off the wall and if he didn't, I thought (Ryan) Flaherty was. We had the right guys up there. They just didn't do it."

Vanderbilt took a 2-1 lead in the fourth on a RBI double from Shea Robin and a RBI single from Alex Feinberg. The Crimson Tide loaded the bases in the fifth, but starter Nick Christiani responded by striking out Kent Matthes and got Alex Avila to ground out to end the inning. Christiani gave up one run in 6.1 innings to go along with five walks, while striking out six.

"It leaves a sour taste in your mouth," Christiani said. "We played well Friday and Saturday, and we played pretty well (Sunday). We just didn't get the win."

De la Osa hit his eighth homer of the season to give Vanderbilt a 3-1 lead in the seventh, but Avila responded with a round-tripper of his own in the eighth to cut the deficit in half.

Weathers hit Brandon Belcher to lead off the ninth. Jake Smith then bunted Belcher to second, and after Emeel Salem lined out, Matthes brought Belcher home on a single to right.

"Casey's a great closer," Christiani said. "Ninety-nine out of 100 times he's going to get that done."

Vanderbilt 4, Alabama 2

Three pitchers combined to three-hit Alabama Saturday afternoon as the Commodores clinched the series victory.

Vanderbilt jumped out to a 2-0 lead on back-to-back solo homers by Alvarez and de la Osa in the third. Matt Meingasner's RBI double in the fourth extended the lead to three.

Freshman lefthander Mike Minor cruised through five innings before running into trouble in the sixth, but reliever Cody Crowell came on to preserve the Commodores' 3-2 lead.

"The most valuable thing we've got on our team is the experience that can come into the game like Crowell to get to Casey Weathers," Corbin said. "The game could have flipped if Cody doesn't get it done."

Meingasner, who finished 3-for-4 with two RBIs on the day, added an RBI single in the sixth to make it 4-2.
Minor moved to 5-0 on the year after giving up two unearned runs on three hits with three strikeouts and two walks. Crowell pitched two hitless innings and Weathers went 1.2 innings to record his third save of the year.

Vanderbilt 3, Alabama 0

With runners on second and third and nobody out in the top of the eighth and the game still scoreless, junior ace David Price wasn't worried.

He calmly got Emeel Salem to fly out to shallow left field and after an intentional walk, fanned pinch-hitter Kyle Moore and forced Kent Matthew to ground out. Just like that, the threat was over.

"There are not many guys that have the stuff nor the courage to win that inning and that's what he had," Corbin said.

The Commodores scored three runs in the bottom half of the inning, highlighted by a Shea Robin RBI single.

Price came back out to clinch it in the ninth.

"I was throwing three pitches for strikes tonight," Price said. "I remember last year everything they hit was a laser to the wall, so I wanted to come back out tonight and do a good job."

Price (6-0) scattered three hits while striking out 10 in his fourth complete game of the season. The southpaw also recorded his seventh double-digit strikeout game in his last eight starts. He has 346 strikeouts in his career, four shy of the school record.

"I have never been on a team like this that no matter what happens in the game, we feel like we are going to win, we just don't know how it is going to happen," Robin said.

That's what made Sunday's loss so surprising.

-Max Franklin contributed reporting to this story.