By Will Vandervort.
To say Clemson was a little anxious during Monday’s selection show on ESPNU doesn’t quite cut it. The Tigers were downright nervous and there was a thought process where some of the players thought maybe they were not getting in.
“It runs through your head nonstop,” Clemson leftfielder Reed Rohlman said. “We were talking about it (Monday) morning waiting for the selection show and that’s all we have been talking or thinking about for the last couple of days now.”
Finally, all the talk and speculation ended when the Tigers saw their name in the Fullerton Regional where they will take on No. 2 seed Arizona State on Friday at 6 p.m. Eastern Standard time. Cal State Fullerton is the host school and the No. 1 seed in the regional as it will play No. 4 Pepperdine in the other game on Friday.
“It was a great feeling seeing our name up on there,” Rohlman said. “We are excited to go over to California and hopefully do some damage.”
The Tigers (32-27) were the last team in according to the NCAA selection committee, just getting in over ACC rival North Carolina. Clemson’s 16-13 conference record and the fact the Tigers were 8-3 going down the stretch, while the Tar Heels were 3-8, also played a role in the selection committee’s mind.
It also helped that Clemson was 4-2 versus No. 3 overall seed Louisville and ACC Tournament Champion Florida State in the regular season, whereas UNC was 13-16 in the ACC despite not having to play two of the conference’s three best teams.
The Tar Heels did beat Clemson in the ACC Tournament to tie the season series at 2-2 last Friday, and had a No. 28 RPI compared to Clemson’s 54, but the committee threw all of that out the window when it compared those things to Clemson’s overall body work, especially with what the Tigers did in the ACC.
“We played a tough schedule and we really did not have any breathers along the line,” Clemson head coach Jack Leggett said. “That was another factor for us in being able to get in. We played well in our conference, which is a very tough conference. Our RPI was not great and we lost a couple of tough midweek games during the course of the season and that did not help us. We were able to overshadow it by the way we played at the end and the way we played in our conference.
“We had some good things going for us and I know it was close, but it was close for a lot of teams.”
Now that the Tigers are in, they are ready and believe they can make a run at Omaha. Unlike last year, when they just barely snuck into the NCAA Tournament before being kicked out with two embarrassing defeats to Oregon and Xavier, the Tigers feel they are more equipped to handle the pressures that come with playing in a regional.
“We seem to play up to our competition and to the challenge,” Clemson pitcher Matthew Crownover said. “I feel some of the best pitchers we have faced all year, we hit them the best and played well on defense. I’m looking forward to it and looking forward to seeing what we can do.”
It would have been easy for the Tigers to fold their tents after a disappointing effort in a loss to Wofford on May 5. That pushed their record to 24-24 at the time and no one outside the program believed they would be in the NCAA Tournament.
But they came back in the next game and beat 17th-ranked College of Charleston. Then they took two of three from Georgia Southern that following weekend before going to Greenville and rallying from 10 runs down to beat Furman.
Then came the sweep of eighth-ranked Florida State in Tallahassee and a 7-2 victory over Louisville in the ACC Tournament.
“I’m very proud of this team. Their toughness has been on display all season long,” Leggett said. “We have had to win some tough games. We backed ourselves into a corner. We would get a little momentum and then we would lose the momentum. At times we were a little frustrated, but at the same time we all believed in what we were doing and we all believed in each other and we have a good core of leaders on our baseball team.
“We have hungry kids that are motivated to play baseball and love playing baseball for Clemson, so I’m very proud of them. I’m proud of their toughness and very proud of their resiliency this year and I’m certainly proud of how they held things together throughout the year.”