Jason Priester All Clemson
Despite 'Tough to Watch' Loss to Coastal Carolina, Clemson Still Controls Own Destiny
CONWAY, S.C.- Playing its fifth straight game away from home, Clemson suffered arguably its ugliest loss of the season on Tuesday night against Coastal Carolina.
The Chanticleers plated four runs in the second inning, four more in the third, then exploded for seven runs in the fifth, on its way to a 17-2 win over the Tigers, in front of its biggest home crowd of the season.
After playing a Sunday night game in Charlottesville due to weather delays, Monte Lee's team spent most of Monday travelling straight to Conway. When asked if fatigue could have factored into his team's performance on Tuesday, the head coach wasn't interested in offering up any excuses.
"I'm not one of those guys that makes excuses," Lee said. "We didn't play well. We didn't pitch well early in the game and they took advantage of us and they they beat us pretty good. It was it was tough to watch."
Nine Clemson pitchers combined to walk 10 Coastal hitters, then hit six more, giving the Chanticleers 16 free passes on the night. That, along with a strong performance from starting pitcher Matthew Potok, who threw five scoreless innings in his first start of the season, was just too much to overcome.
"Way too many free 90s, lot of walks, HBPs," Lee said. "But give Coastal credit, they swung the bat well, they pitched exceptionally well. They were a much better team tonight in their home ballpark."
The Tigers will now return home for its final ACC series of the season. Boston College is set to visit Doug Kingsmore for a three-game set to begin on Thursday with Clemson a half a game ahead of Duke for the 12th and final spot in the ACC Tournament.
With such a quick turnaround and with his team still in control of its own destiny regarding the conference tournament, Lee's message to his team after the lopsided loss was quite simple.
"I just told the guys, 'Look, we got to let it go'" Lee said. "You know, we've been here before. We've played really good baseball, we've played really bad baseball and bottom line is we gotta let it go. We got to be ready to go and control our own destiny. We got to earn the right to keep playing."
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