Tigers are Greedy, Seek Another ACC Championship
By: will-vandervort May 22, 2024

CLEMSON — In the 50-year history of the ACC Baseball Tournament, no school has won more tournament championships than Clemson.

The Tigers, who won last year’s ACC Tournament, have won 11 championships since the league began the tournament in 1973. However, Clemson has not won back-to-back tournament championships since the 1993 and 1994 seasons, and have won back-to-back titles just twice, with the other coming in 1980 and 1981.

The third-ranked Tigers, who are the No. 2 seed in the field, will begin their defense of the 2023 ACC Championship Thursday against No. 11 seed Miami at 11 a.m., from Truist Field in Charlotte. The winner will advance to Saturday’s semifinals.

“We are just trying to gain momentum and keep playing good baseball,” said third baseman Blake Wright, who was named to the All-ACC second team earlier this week. “We hope to take it into this tournament this week and then take it into the regional.”

Clemson enters the tournament with a 40-13 overall record, including a 20-10 mark in ACC play. The 20 wins were good enough to earn the Tigers the Atlantic Division Championship. However, head coach Erik Bakich says they are hungry for more.

“We really wanted to (win) the regular overall (championship), the one seed,” he said. “That was more the goal. It was to be the outright champions, but if you do not do that then at least win the division and then you got the tournament.

“There are actually three championships in the ACC to play for and we just want to be greedy and get them all.”

The Tigers ended the regular season by sweeping Boston College. Right now, they are projected as the No. 6 national seed by D1 Baseball. Winning the ACC Tournament would guarantee, at the least, a top 8 national seed.

“We did not get the outright (regular season championship), but we got the division and now you have twelve teams going at it for the tournament championship. We want that one too,” Bakich said. “The team that is going to win the tournament is the team that plays the best.

“So, everything gets reduced down to how we play, it is not who we play. That is how we planned it because we will be playing different teams every day.”

A limited number of signed footballs from Clemson’s 2022 class are still available.  Get yours while supplies last!  Visit Clemson Variety & Frame or purchase online!