Clemson baseball stepped up to the plate (literally) on Friday night and took down an upset-hungry USC Upstate team thanks to some late-game heroics by the offense, 7-3.
Cam Cannarella and TP Wentworth played the roles of heroes on Friday night along with Jacob McGovern as the Tigers staved off a massive upset to start regional play 1-0. The win didn't come easy and as we found out from the rest of the NCAA baseball tournament field, the favorites didn't exactly have the best night on Friday.
With the win over the "best 4-seed" in any region as Erik Bakich stated before the game, Clemson advances to a Saturday showdown against the other team in the Clemson Region that won its opener.
Who will the Tigers play?
Clemson will get a matchup with 2-seed West Virginia on Saturday evening, so the road really isn't getting any easier for this club. The Tigers will have to play one of the best teams from the Big 12 who finished the regular season 41-14 before earning a matchup with Kentucky on Friday. They beat the Wildcats 4-3 on a walk-off RBI single, so emotions are high with the Mountaineers as well.
These Cardiac Cats are going to need to lock in on Saturday night at the same time as Friday's game (6 p.m. ET) and they'll need to play much better if they're going to beat West Virginia.
If there's one thing we can say about Clemson this season, it's that the Tigers always find a way to make things interesting.