After an emotional weekend series win over Wake Forest, Clemson had a speedy turnaround against another quality opponent in Coastal Carolina.

The No. 6 Tigers took two out of three from the No. 11 Demon Deacons over the weekend, capped off by a Sunday victory that saw the Tigers wipe out an early six-run deficit and win in dramatic walk-off fashion in the bottom of the ninth.

However, that magic did not carry over to the Tuesday matchup with the Chanticleers, as Coastal used a six-run third inning to propel themselves to an 8-2 win, handing the Tigers just their fourth defeat of the season.

“No excuses. We played pretty bad,” head coach Erik Bakich said after the loss. “Came out flat, and the coach always has to point the thumb when the team comes out flat.”

The Tigers seemed to come out a little flat and managed just five hits while going 0-for-11 with runners on base.

“You can blame it on a lot of things,” Bakich added. “We talked about it in our pregame scouting meeting. Being mentally tough enough to be able to recenter after a hard-fought weekend, an emotional weekend. Being able to get back to the middle and give everything we got against a good Coastal team was going to be a heck of a challenge. They flat-out outplayed us, outhit us, outpitched us, outcoached us, did all the things.”

Coming out flat wasn’t the only issue, as starting pitcher Noah Samol issued five earned runs on just two hits. The lefty walked two and hit three more batters in just 2.2 innings of work.

Coastal managed just five hits total, but with Clemson pitchers issuing a combined 12 free passes, which included an uncharacteristic seven hit batsmen, the Chants had traffic on the bases for much of the night.

“That is not the recipe for winning,” Bakich said. “That is the recipe for giving up a lot of runs. Certainly playing with fire. And we have flirted with that a bit. It’s been an area of focus for us. Giving guys a lot of opportunities to come out of the pen and see what they can do. Even on the weekends with our starters, the recipe is very simple. When we minimize those things and keep our walks per nine innings closer to three versus closer to four, or over four, then good things happen. It’s a goal for us every single to game to keep the walk and hit by pitches at three or less. Obviously, we came nowhere near that.”

Fortunately, the Tigers won’t have to sit around and stew in the loss very long, as Bakich’s team will play host to Presbyterian on Wednesday at 6 p.m.

Talan Bell will get the start for Clemson, as the freshman is set to make his collegiate debut.

“We will have to make the adjustment tomorrow,” Bakich said. “We will have to come out and treat Presbyterian like it’s the biggest game on our schedule. Becuase it is. It’s the next one. We will need to get back to our standard of how we play.”