CLEMSON — The way the 2023 season came to an end left a very bad taste in the mouth of the Clemson baseball players that are returning for the 2024 campaign.

The Tigers stunned everyone last year when they won their last 11 regular season games and then rolled through the ACC Baseball Championship. In the second game of the Clemson Regional, Clemson owned a 16-game win streak and was one strike away from knocking off Tennessee for win No. 17.

However, the Tigers could not close it out, as the Volunteers rallied and eventually won the game in 14 innings, 6-5. The sting of the Tennessee loss carried over to the next day as Charlotte ended Clemson’s season, 3-2, in an elimination game.

“This seems to be a very hungry group. They are very motivated,” Clemson head coach Erik Bakich said to The Clemson Insider in an exclusive interview. “There is still a very bitter taste in their mouth the way the season ended last year.

“They’ve come out on a mission.”

Clemson’s mission is to get to the College World Series and compete for a national championship. Something the program has not done since 2010.

“Someone asked me earlier, ‘What is the team like?’ It feels like they are on a mission,” Bakich said. “They crushed it in the classroom with a 3.27 team GPA, which beat our own record last year with a 3.09.

“So, it feels like all the right things. You never want to put too much out there, but it feels, right. It feels like this group is very motivated to accomplish a lot and take this program, not only to where it was in the heyday, but to do some things that have not been done.”

The Tigers, ranked No. 10 in the D1Baseball Top 25 Preseason Poll, return 21 lettermen from last year squad that went 44-19 and 20-10 in the ACC. Back is outfielders Cam Cannarella and Will Taylor, as well as infielders Blake Wright. They also return starting pitchers Ethan Darden, Austin Gordon and Tristan Smith.

But last year’s success does not guarantee success this year, which is something Bakich has stressed to his team.

“We got to earn that,” the Clemson coach said. “You earn that by treating each day as an opportunity to get better and hope that you have done that enough to where you can be one of the teams that gets hot when it counts at the end.

“If this team does, there is nothing that it can’t accomplish.”