The same issues that have persisted all season long continued to haunt Clemson baseball on Saturday night at Doug Kingsmore Stadium. The Tigers fell to West Virginia, 9-6, on Saturday to drop to 1-1 in regional play, needing to win out in order to make it to the Super Regional.
That won't be easy considering West Virginia is now 2-0 in the regional. The Tigers are going to need to beat Kentucky and not lose another game in order to advance to the Super Regional for a second straight season. That's not exactly where Erik Bakich hoped to be after two days.
A growing trend has arisen this postseason in college baseball and it has been top seeds losing. We've even seen a No. 1 seed eliminated already.
Clemson is hoping it's not next.
Saturday's contest was frustrating, however. The Tigers found themselves in a 4-0 hole early on due to some poor pitching and then they stormed back to take a 5-4 lead thanks to Cam Cannarella (who else?). He hit a homer to trim the lead early and then had the go-ahead double in the sixth. They would make things interesting in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded and down 9-6 thanks to a Collin Priest walk. That's as close as it would get, however.
Pitching woes continued in the ninth after West Virginia knotted things up in the eighth as the Tigers plunked two batters and gave up four huge runs to lose the game.
Clemson moves into an elimination game with No. 3 Kentucky on Sunday at noon ET after the Wildcats held on to beat USC Upstate earlier on Saturday.
Everything is riding on Sunday's game now.