Following second-ranked Clemson’s series opening loss to No. 10 NC State on Friday, Tigers head coach Monte Lee’s biggest message to his team was that it needed to compete harder in order to bounce back with a win on Saturday.

Lee was disappointed to not see that happen during Saturday’s 6-1 loss to the Wolfpack at Doug Kingsmore Stadium.

“We have to do a better job of competing,” Lee said. “That’s on me. I have to try to send the right message and try to make some adjustments for our guys. But we have to compete. We have to bring more energy.”

Clemson (16-3, 3-2 ACC) committed five errors in Friday’s defeat, and the Tigers have scored just one run in 18 innings against the Wolfpack so far this weekend.

Offensively in the series, Clemson is a combined 5-for-34 with runners on base and 1-for-13 with runners in scoring position. The Tigers have left 18 men on base and struck out 20 times.

“We certainly didn’t help ourselves offensively,” Lee said. “We’ve had opportunities to score but could not come up with a hit. We have to do a better job of competing at the plate.”

After getting off to its best start since 2002 with a 16-1 record entering this weekend’s series, Clemson has dropped two consecutive games for the first time this season while losing its first series of the year.

Lee knows there will be peaks and valleys over the course of a long season, but says his team’s competitive spirit should never drop off.

“You’re going to go through tough stretches in the season. It’s a long season,” he said. “You’re going to go through times where you’re not playing your best baseball, but how you compete should never change, and we’re going to have to compete a lot harder going into tomorrow.”

That was the message Lee reiterated to his team after Saturday’s loss.

The Tigers will try to take his message to heart and avoid a sweep in game three of the series, which begins at 1 p.m. Sunday.

“He just said we have to keep fighting,” senior outfielder Robert Jolly said of Lee. “The beautiful thing about baseball is that we’ve played two games already and we still have a third tomorrow. So, we’re going to have to see how tough we are.

“This is the first time we’ve lost two games in a row, so we have to come out (Sunday) and really fight and really grind. They’re a really good team, so we have to show how tough we are, and we know how good we are. So, we’re just going to have to come out here and show it tomorrow.”