CHARLOTTE, N.C.- For the first few innings on Friday, Clemson, looked to be on its way to one of its most listless losses of the season.
Louisville jumped on the Tigers early, plating a run in the first, three more in the second and one each in the third and the fourth, as Clemson quickly went down 6-0.
While Erik Bakich has become accustomed to seeing his team go down early only to overcome the deficits and come out on the winning side, on Friday he saw something different, and he didn’t like it. After Clemson hitters struck out six times over the first three innings, Bakich gathered the entire team in the dugout between innings to let them know he was not happy with the effort early on.
“I don’t know if that is for TV commentary,” Bakich said. “Basically it was get your head out of your butt. Start competing. We may lose the game but we’re not going to lose the game playing like this.”
“But I don’t need to say much. I think I started it with a question, asking what they thought people thought of Clemson who were watching in the stands or watching on TV of our effort so far in those first few innings. But I didn’t have to say much. We’ve got great leadership and the captains of this team know how to get everybody to make that mind switch quickly if need be.”
After the fiery speech, the Tigers started chipping away. Clemson finally got on the board with a run in the fourth, before pushing across three more in the sixth to cut the lead to 6-4.
Once his team got dialed in and started to get things going, Bakich saw what he has seen so often this season, as the Tigers registered a comeback win for the 24th time.
“They jumped us, right away down 6-0,” Bakich said. “But the superpower of this team is the believability that they are going to come back. And it took awhile for us to mount it, we missed some scoring opportunities early.”
One of the biggest hero’s of the game was freshman reliever Jacob McGovern. The lefty entered in the fourth with a runner on third and just one out, with his team already in a six run hole. McGovern would then retire the next two hitters and strand the runner at third. The freshman held the Cardinals at bay for a career-high 3.1 innings, allowing just one unearned run on hit, while striking out two.
“We needed something to happen and two big things happened,” Bakich said. “Jacob McGovern came in and put zero’s up out of the pen and only gave up a bloop single and a walk. He was just awesome out of the pen.”
Drew Tittsworth and Austin Gordon would hold Louisville scoreless over the final 2.1 innings, allowing the offense a chance to do its thing.
The Tigers would get a 3-run homer from Jimmy Obertop in the eighth to tie the score at 7-7, and then in the ninth, with the bases loaded, Obertop came to the plate once more. This time he drew a four-pitch walk, forcing in the winning run and allowing Clemson to finish up pool play on a high note.
“Then Jimmy Obertop doing what Jimmy Obertop does,” Bakich said. “He ties the game with a 3-run homer and then gets the walk-off walk there at the end. Really proud of our club. We make it very hard on ourselves at times but they have that it factor.”
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