WINSTON SALEM, NC – After getting swept for the first time in more than a calendar year, Clemson head baseball coach Erik Bakich isn’t close to hitting the panic button.

The second-ranked Tigers held tough with the No. 12 Demon Deacons through the first two games, but on Sunday in the series finale, it was all Wake Forest. The Demon Deacons hit five home runs off of four different Clemson pitchers en-route to a 13-3 run-rule victory over Bakich’s club.

The Tigers will now head to Coastal Carolina on Tuesday night having lost four of the past six games and looking to snap a three-game losing streak. Bakich is hoping his team will use what happened over the weekend as fuel to get things turned around as they head into the final week of the regular season.

“This would be a great time to regroup, refocus, get up, reengage and start playing better,” Bakich told The Clemson Insider after Sunday’s game. “Confidence is a fickle thing.  You can lose it quick and gain it quick.  They had all of the confidence in the world and we didn’t. We can get it back and we can go on a hellacious run.”

The last time the Tigers were swept came at the hands of Wake Forest, as well. The Deacs rolled into Doug Kingsmore and took three tightly contested contests from Clemson in early April of last year. That sweep turned out to be a turning point for Bakich’s team as they would go on a tear, winning 17-straight at one point, including sweeping through the ACC Tournament.

What was done once can be done again, and the head coach fully believes his current team is capable of pulling off a similar feat.

“I stand here to tell you today that I am not panicking,” Bakich said. “Not for one second. I believe in this team. I like our guys. We’ll be fine. This will end up being a really good thing. We needed this. Maybe we will look back and say this is what we needed.”

Bakich is also hoping that the Clemson fan base will stick with his team,  although he knows there will be those that do not. And if his team is going to get things turned around ahead of the postseason, one of the keys will tuning out the outside noise that is sure to come.

“What we don’t need is people losing faith,” Bakich said. “They are going to anyways because that is what fans do that have never played and have no idea how to compete. But we don’t care. We don’t listen to it. We don’t care what people think. We’re going to get back and we are going to do out thing. They can jump back on the bandwagon or we will step on their fingers. Either way.”

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