The undefeated streak of Clemson’s freshman pitcher lives even after a week off.

Aidan Knaak made his return to the mound Sunday as the Tigers took down Georgia Tech 9-3. He took last week off from his normal weekend start, but got back into rhythm in the win.

He had 41 pitches after two innings and gave up a home run in the second frame. It wasn’t perfect, but he found a rhythm and pitched for four innings. The cerebral pitcher took a moment to get in that groove, and the time off had an impact.

“I faced some adversity in the first inning but once I got back out there and just kept going pitch by pitch, kind of got that mental rhythm that I forgot about by taking that week off but it was good to get back in that routine mentally and be out there and figure it out and be able to compete,” Knaak said.

The big question that remains is the plan with Knaak moving forward. Head coach Erik Bakich noted that he was on a pitch count in this game. He said that it “didn’t make sense” to bring him in for the fifth inning, but he could’ve if it was desperate.

“I think we’ll manage (Knaak). He’s not going to be, none of our guys never really go much past 100 but he was 75 today so maybe he could go 85, 90 next week. I don’t know, I think we’ll just have to see…he was at 41 pitches after two innings…that played into it as well. Those are stressful innings,” Bakich said.

Following this appearance, Knaak has given up two earned runs over his last 24.2 innings of work. He’s also 11-0 on the season. Knock on wood or whatever works, because Knaak is the winning formula for Clemson to this point.