Clemson baseball takes down Virginia Tech to open ACC Championship
Clemson finished the regular season in spectacular fashion by reeling off 12 straight wins to cap off a 23-4 run over nearly 2 months. Postseason baseball is expected to be different though. More pressure on every pitch, more intensity from the crowds, and usually a higher level of play overall factor in. Well, in the first opportunity these Tigers had in the ACC Tournament, not much has changed.
To earn their 40th win, 3rd-seeded Clemson had to take on a 10th-seeded Virginia Tech team that they had just swept 10 days prior. That can sometimes cause a team to let their guard down even if there were a couple of close calls in that original 3-game series.
Caden Grice's 6th-inning grand slam helped push the Tigers past Virginia Tech. (Clemson Athletics)
The Tigers did fall behind in this one on 3 separate occasions. They went down 1-0 heading into the 2nd inning, 2-1 heading into the 3rd and, after giving up a game-high 3 runs to the Hokies in the 4th, were still down 5-3 heading into the 6th.
A little bit of luck happened to give Clemson some momentum at that point in the game. With 2 outs and 2 runners on a pop fly that should have been relatively easy for either the Tech shortstop or left fielder to snag fell and both runners scored to tie it up. The Tiger offense then took full advantage of this gift.
With a full count - and still 2 outs - newly crowned ACC Freshman of the Year Cam Cannarella lined one into left-center to take the lead back for good. The Hokies had lost all control of the momentum by this point and that's when Caden Grice put the game away with a grand slam to cap off a 7-run 6th inning on the way to an eventual 14-5 victory.
When Grice was asked after the game whether, because of the hot streak the team has been on, he feels that something good is just going to happen eventually no matter what, he responded with, "I think it comes down to toughness. We're a really tough team and we believe we're never out of the fight. We just keep on grinding pitch after pitch. We don't look ahead, we don't look behind us we just keep going."
The Tigers will take on Boston College Friday at 11 a.m. Eastern. The Eagles just so happen to be the last team to beat Clemson, all the way back on April 28th.