By Will Vandervort.

While Tyler Krieger was speaking to me following Sunday’s 6-2 victory over Wake Forest, pitching coach Dan Pepicelli’s daughter, Mia, tagged Clemson’s second baseman in the hand and said, “Tag! You’re it!” as he she ran away.

It was a fitting moment for what is a fitting situation for the junior. Krieger is it. He has been tagged as Clemson’s leader and the team’s best hitter is doing all he can to get his teammates to follow his lead before they run away into the sunset like Mia did.

“We need to come together and not let one mistake lead to another, basically,” Krieger said. “We have had some times where the pitchers and the position players have not picked each other up. We need to do a better job of that and I think today was a good example of that.”

Game 3 of the Wake Forest series was a perfect example of that. To think the Clemson players don’t hear the chattering about their head coach’s future outside of the clubhouse is irresponsible. They know what’s going on and yes, they feel the pressure from it.

But on Sunday, they put all the aside and played like it was a one-game season. They played like there was nothing to lose and they did not care what the fans and media alike were saying about them or their embattled head coach.

Today was about them. It was about them coming together as a team and playing for each other.

Before the ballgame there was a team meeting and catcher Chris Okey stood up in front of his teammates and reaffirmed to them that it wasn’t about the other team in the dugout, the fans or the media. It was about them and them alone.

Okey told them they have a good team and they can get this season turned around.

“He was right on the mark,” Clemson head coach Jack Leggett said. “We really do believe we have a good team, but we just have not been able to string that whole thing together yet. But watch out if we do.”

On Sunday, Clemson got a three-run home run from Eli White—his first home run of his career—and perhaps the best pitching performance of the year from lefty Zac Erwin, who stonewalled the ACC’s best hitting lineup.

The Deacons scored 15 runs combined in Games 1 and 2 before Erwin put the handcuffs on them and limited them to one earned run and seven hits in eight innings of work.

Right fielder Steven Duggar, who said following Saturday’s loss the Tigers have to treat Sunday’s game as the opening game to a new season, did his part when he stretched out in the second inning and robbed Wake’s Nick Bisplinghoff of a possible double that would have scored two runs.

“If somebody lets somebody get a hit, then we are going to make a play. Then at the next at-bat a guy strikes out then somebody has to come and pick him up because that is the game,” Krieger said. “Mistakes are going to be made, but if you can limit those mistakes then you are going to be successful.”

Clemson limited those mistakes on Sunday. Guys like Duggar, Krieger, White, Erwin and Weston Wilson made the plays that helped the Tigers win the first-game in what they are calling a new season.

No, as Krieger mentions, they have not forgotten the first 25 games of the 2015 season. They know they were all a part of the worst start in the Jack Leggett era at Clemson. Now, they just want to learn from it.

“What we are trying to do and the culture we are trying to create is that it is okay to make mistakes, but you have to learn from them. That is the ultimate thing,” Krieger said. “We have to learn from the record right now. We have to learn from the losses we have had and we have to learn from the wins we have had. We have to grow from it together, as a team. And we will.”