CLEMSON — It has been a long time since Clemson has been in this position.

Thanks to Saturday’s 4-3 victory over No. 3 seed Coastal Carolina, the top-seeded Tigers are within one win of winning an NCAA Baseball Regional.

It has been a long time since Clemson (43-14) has been in this situation. The Tigers have not won an NCAA Regional since 2010. It’s been since 2009 they won a regional at Doug Kingsmore Stadium in Clemson.

It’s been 13 years since they find themselves 2-0 in a regional heading into Sunday.

“We are just taking it like every other game,” shortstop Jacob Hinderleider said. “We approached the first game of the season, the same way we are going to approach tomorrow. We just know that we need to compete hard and play loose and have fun. That is when we are at our best.”

The Tigers probably need to swing the bats a little more too. In two games in the Clemson Regional, they have scored eight runs and have yet to hit a home run. Clemson is the only team in the Clemson Regional not to hit a home run.

Clemson finished Saturday night with 10 hits but were 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position. The Tigers had 10 hits in their win over High Point on Friday and were 4-for-12 with an opportunity to score.

Prior to Friday’s win over High Point, Clemson hit at least one home run in 14 straight games. However, the Tigers are not too concerned because they have found other ways to win, and they have done that all season.

“We have not been reliant and exclusive to the home run all year,” Clemson head coach Erik Bakich said. “We have had to bunt or steal and string quality at-bats together. It would be nice to get some home runs, but it is a credit to both the environment and the pitching.

“Everybody is good. These are the best 64 teams in the country. Everybody is good and we are getting everybody’s best performance. This is an awesome regional with four really good teams and they are here for a reason. In tournament baseball, it would be great to sit back and hit a whole bunch of home runs and I hope we do tomorrow.”

But if the Tigers do not, Bakich is not worried because they will do like they did on Saturday, get a couple of sacrifice fly RBIs, steal and bunt to move runners over if they have to.

“We will do that too as long as we pitch and play defense,” he said. “That is the number one thing these first two games. We really pitched and played defense at a really high level.”

Clemson will play in the Championship Bracket of the tournament today with first pitch set for 6 p.m.

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