Tigers prepared to use "Johnny Wholestaff against Gamecocks

OXFORD, Miss.-- The Clemson Tigers are facing the end of their season when they take the field Sunday against Jacksonville State. That means they will be pulling out all the stops when it comes to winning their first game.

The Tigers announced Sunday that they would be starting Brooks Crawford, who has allowed nine earned runs in his last three times on the mound (3.2 innings), against the Gamecocks.

But the Tiger coaching staff will not hesitate to use the much maligned "Johnny Wholestaff."

Yeah well, you have to win game one to get to game two," Tiger head coach Monte Lee said. "I think we all know that, so we're going to do everything ... we'll empty the tank if we got to empty the tank in game one to try and win game one, because our season's on the line. Hopefully we put together a good game plan. We pitch well, we swing the bats well. We can get deep into the game with whoever we decide to start, and whoever we got left will have to step up and find a way if we're fortunate enough to get to game two, but yes, we'll use everybody we got to use to get through game one."

Regardless of how many arms the Tigers have to use in Game 1, the plan is for the Tigers to spend the whole day at Swayze Field.

"Well, we need to get a good nights sleep, need to get a good meal in our guys tomorrow, and understand that the plan is to be here for a while," Lee said. "That's the goal. We're going to try to be here for a while tomorrow, but we got to worry about game one first. We got to find a way to fight and claw and just compete as hard as we can. We know what's at stake. Our season's on the line. We got to be mentally prepared to be here for quite a while tomorrow, and just compete every pitch, compete every inning, and some guys on the mound have got to step up.

"Obviously, we've used a number of guys. Some guys are going to have to pitch on short rest and we got to compete, and offensively I think we need to be a little bit better. I felt like we chased out of the zone quite a good bit tonight. We need to be a little more disciplined at the plate and hopefully tomorrow in game one, we can find a way to score early. I think that's been the biggest difference for us here lately. We've been able to score early and get deeper in the game with our starters. That's the biggest key or us tomorrow."