Well, They Made It

It was a rough couple of weeks for the Clemson baseball team, but Jack Leggett's kids won when they had to and got some help from the boys at VPI, so now it is off to Jacksonville for the ACC Baseball Championship. The Tigers will be the number eight seed and face the one seed, Miami. The Tigers lost all three match-ups in Coral Gables early this year, but two out of the three were close, including the first game which Yonder Alonzo won on a towering home run that still might be going. The way D.J. Mitchell has pitched as of late, most Tiger faithful will be looking for a "W" in game one. I am not saying I don't like Clemson's chances, but mind you Miami has been ranked number one in the country most of the season for a reason. Game one will be Wednesday with the first pitch scheduled for 1pm. Game two for the Tigers will be against NC State on Thursday at 8pm. Clemson took two out of three from the Pack this season. Elliott Avent, the coach of NC State, is one of my favorite opposing coaches in the league. His club has been playing very well as of late despite losing two out of three against Florida State in Tallahassee to end the regular season. The Tigers will get an off day on Friday and then take on Georgia Tech Saturday morning at 10am. The Jackets went two and one versus the Tigers in Atlanta just a couple of weeks ago. It was the last game against Tech when the Tigers bats came alive scoring 16 runs and pounding out 20 hits. Since then the Tigers haven't lost and have had at least ten hits in each of the last five games. So what needs to happen for the Tigers to make the NCAA Tournament? I think Clemson has to go at least two and one in the ACC Tournament with one of the wins coming over Miami. As I write this Clemson sits at number 24 in Warren Nolan's "Nitty Gritty Report" (http://www.warrennolan.com/baseball/2008/nitty). I will have daily updates from Jacksonville starting on Tuesday. If you are in Jacksonville hunt me down at the ballpark. Go Tigers!