Clemson Baseball: Breaking Down the Tourney Teams
By Ben Greeson
Here’s a preview of the teams headed to Clemson baseball’s Regional for the NCAA Tournament.
The Clemson baseball team will play host to the NCAA Regional Tournament starting this Friday June 3rd.
With the first game of the series slated for 12 p.m., Oklahoma State (36-20), the #2 seed, will face off against the #3 seed Nebraska Cornhuskers (37-20).
Clemson (42-18), the #1 seed, will then play Western Carolina (30-29) the #4 seed at 7pm Friday night. Let’s take a look at the Tigers’ opponents in this regional matchup and see how they stack up against the Tigers.
The Oklahoma State Cowboys are flying in from Stillwater, OK after putting up a 1-2 record in the Big 12 tourney. This is the fourth regional appearance in a row for the Cowboys, and OSU is making its 42nd all time NCAA tourney appearance, a total that ranks 4th all time. OSU has travelled to Clemson previously for an NCAA Regional, that coming in 2009. The Cowboys won their first two games, defeating Alabama and then Clemson, but the host Tigers came back to win two straight against OSU to advance to the Super Regional.
Dustin Williams leads the Cowboys with 14 home-runs, but also leads the team in strikeouts. No one else on the team has more than four home-runs on the season. Williams is obviously the big
bat in the lineup. Thomas Hatch is the ace of the staff. The right-handed sophomore was recruited by virtually everyone in the country coming out of high school. Hatch is 6-2 in 15 starts on the year and has a nice 2.31 ERA. Oklahoma State has an overall team ERA of 3.47 and teams are batting .242 against the Pokes.
Head Coach Josh Holliday had this to say about his Cowboys.
"“To be in the NCAA Tournament is a great honor. We’ve worked hard all year-long and had a very challenging, awesome learning experience throughout this season. Had you told me at 2-5 with four-straight walk-off losses at the beginning of year that this group of kids would navigate this season the way they have and put us in position to play in the NCAA Tournament with a chance to win something, I would have taken it. Because it’s been an uphill climb for us.“I’m very proud of the kids. We’ve had a lot of injuries, we’ve had a lot of tough moments and we’ve also had a lot of very good moments. That’s something that needs to be appreciated about this particular team is the leadership and toughness they’ve displayed.”"
OSU will play the Nebraska Cornhuskers Friday at 12 p.m. This is the second time in three years that the Huskers have earned an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. Nebraska is making its 14th NCAA Regional appearance.
The Cornhuskers are led by the big bat of Scott Scheiber. He as 16 home-runs on the season and 55 RBIs all the while, sporting a hefty .320 batting average.
That, however, is not only thing that fuels this Nebraska team. There are five pitchers on this team, all have over 20 appearances on the season, that boast ERAs under 3.00. Led by their ace Jake Meyers who is 6-1 on the year with
an eye-popping 1.38 ERA.
Reece Eddins is 4-2 this season with a 1.54 ERA and the Huskers’ closer, Chad Luensmann has 13 saves under his belt and a sizzling 1.23 ERA.
The Huskers will try to keep games close using their stellar arms, and use the long ball of Scott Scheiber to put up some insurance runs.
Finally we come to Clemson’s day one match-up, the Catamounts of Western Carolina. WCU is making its 12th NCAA tourney appearance, its first since an at-large bid back in 2007.
The Catamounts garnered the SoCon’s automatic berth into the postseason field after winning its third game in two days with a walk-off victory over regular season champion, Mercer.
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Three of WCU’s regular season opponents were among the field of 64, including the Tigers, Georgia Tech and UNC Wilmington. WCU dropped a pair of close games against Clemson, the ACC tournament champions, during the year including a 10-8 loss in Cullowhee, and a 10-inning 7-6 loss at Doug Kingsmore Stadium.
The Catamounts will literally try to out slug you this season. Junior first basemen, Matt Smith is hitting .387 on the year with, 10 homers and 52 RBI. Only to be out done by Red-Shirt Junior Bryson Bowman.
The Baton, NC native is hitting .336 with 19 HR and 58 RBI. As you can see, those are some big numbers being put up by the meat of the WCU batting order. There’s usually a reason a team with such inflated numbers at the plate are only one game over .500 on the season.
The pitching at WCU has left a lot to be desired. The wins leader for WCU, Bryan Sammons has a nice 8-3 record so far this season, but is carrying a 5.51 ERA around with him. That’s a big number, but it comes in almost half a run less than the WCU pitching staff as a whole. The team ERA for the Catamounts is 5.96.
So, wrapping up the NCAA Clemson Regional tournament, I’ve come to this conclusion. OK State is probably the most balanced out of the potential Tiger opponents.
Nebraska will try to win close games using their stellar pitching staff, but they fall a little short at the plate. And finally, WCU will score a lot, but maybe not as much as they give up.
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This looks to be a very competitive and exciting tournament. If you like games with scores in the teens, you may see some of those. If you like pitchers duels with just a couple runs scored, you may see those too. We’ll see how the cards unfold, Friday at 11am as the road to Omaha begins in Clemson.