By Will Vandervort

Jack Leggett put out the warning following Saturday’s loss to Miami in the ACC Baseball Tournament, now it’s time for his Clemson Tigers to back him up. And they will have to do it in a place where they have had very little success as of late.

Leggett told the media, “I would not want to play us next weekend,” in reference to the way he expected his team to bounce back after losing all three games at the ACC Championships in Durham, N.C., last week. Clemson found out Monday it will travel to the NCAA Columbia Regional this weekend, where it is expected to once again meet up with its old nemeses, the South Carolina Gamecocks.

“Hopefully, look at this way. We were saving it up for this weekend. We will take it out on Carolina when we get down there,” Clemson catcher Garrett Boulware said.

For the second straight year, the NCAA selection committee paired up the Palmetto State’s two biggest baseball programs in the same regional. This is the third time in the last four years the two rivals have met in the postseason, as they played twice in Omaha in the 2010 College World Series.

“I think the fact that we did not get selected as a regional site (and they did) adds to that,” Clemson pitcher Daniel Gossett said. “It is a little extra incentive to play that much harder.”

Up until last week, it appeared Clemson (39-20) might be hosting its own regional, but losing two straight games to close the regular season and then the three-game slide in the ACC Tournament cost the Tigers. After finding out it would not host Sunday, Clemson was at least hoping it would play somewhere they have not been instead of being dumped in Columbia for a second straight year.

“It just one of those things,” Gossett said. “It would have been nice to go somewhere we have never been before, but I’m excited about the opportunity to play there because I know the atmosphere is going to be fantastic and it is going to be fun baseball.”

Leggett was a little taken back on what the selection committee might have been thinking in sending the Tigers back to Columbia in back-to-back years.

“I was on that committee for six years and we kind of thought differently back then,” Leggett said. “I don’t know what the factors are right now on where and when they send people, but I’m just glad we are going someplace and we are looking forward to it.”

South Carolina (39-18) has won six straight postseason games against the Tigers since 2002 and has won four straight at Carolina Stadium overall against Clemson. In the 2012 Columbia Regional, the Gamecocks beat the Tigers 5-4 in 12 innings and then again 4-3 to win the regional.

“That was last year, and this is this year,” Boulware said. “We are a better team than last year and hopefully we will get through there and head up to North Carolina next week.”

The Tigers will play Liberty, the Big South Champions, at 1 p.m. in the first game of the Columbia Regional on Friday, while the Gamecocks will host St. Louis at 7 p.m. that night. South Carolina beat Clemson two out of three this past regular season, including an 8-0 victory in Columbia on March 3.

But Leggett says playing the Gamecocks in the postseason does not take anything away from what happened in the regular-season series because success in the NCAA Tournament is all that matters in the long run no matter who his team might play along the way.

“This is an important time of year, obviously, and this is kind of what you are remembered for when it is all over, so we need play our best baseball this time of the year,” the Clemson coach said. “That’s kind of what is important to you at the end.

“At the end of the year, you don’t remember anything that happened during the course of the year, you will just remember how you finish.”

The Tigers hope it’s not the way they has finished two of the last three years – with a loss to the Gamecocks.