It was a dominant weekend in Clemson, South Carolina, as the 14th-ranked Clemson Tigers completed a four-game sweep of the La Salle Explorers at Doug Kingsmore Stadium.
Friday’s opener was a masterclass by the Tigers. After La Salle’s Chase Swain homered for the Explorers in the first inning, the Clemson offense immediately responded with a four-run inning of its own, highlighted by Jacob Jarrell’s 2-run ground rule double that pushed the lead to 4-1 Tigers heading into the second. Clemson got a brilliant outing from freshman righty Dylan Harrison. Harrison pitched 4 complete innings, allowing just the one run from Swain’s homer and three total hits. Harrison added five strikeouts and no walks, an excellent performance en route to his first career win.
The Tigers would add three more runs in the second inning, once again highlighted by a two-run double, this time from Luke Gaffney. The damage continued into the third inning, when Tryston McCladdie belted a three-run homer to right-center to extend the Clemson lead to 11-1 at the end of the third. The Tigers added a 12th run in the fourth inning and two more in the sixth inning. In the fifth, Clemson brought in junior left-hander Justin LeGuernic, who kept La Salle at bay over the final three innings, allowing just one hit and racking up three strikeouts. The Tigers would claim game one, 14-1.
Saturday brought a doubleheader at Doug Kingsmore, starting with the early game going to the Tigers in a close 6-4 contest. Following his incredible performance in last weekend’s rivalry series, the left-hander Michael Sharman got the start. Sharman went five innings, allowing three hits and two runs, both in the sixth inning. Sharman also added eight strikeouts en route to his fourth win of the season. Jarren Purify led the Clemson offense with two hits and two runs scored. Purify was also walked twice.
Game three went just like game one. The Tigers jumped right out the gate with a three-run first inning started by Nate Savoie’s two-run double and continuing with a fielder’s choice to bring home Savoie. Clemson chased La Salle starter Emilio Rodriguez in the first inning, but it didn’t matter who the Explorers brought in for this game. Luke Gaffney joined in on the party with an RBI single of his own in the second. Despite grounding into a double play, the Tigers added another run to push their lead to 5-1 after two.
Clemson landed their knockout punch in the fourth inning. After pushing across three more runs in the third, Jacob Jarrell led off the fourth with a solo homer to left field to help the Tigers take a 9-4 lead. Later in the inning, McCladdie would add two more on a base hit up the middle, and Tyler Lichtenberger would knock a double down the right field line to add two more. When it was all said and done, Clemson added eight runs in the inning, and the Tigers led 16-4 heading to the fifth. The run-rule once again took effect in the seventh, clinching the series for Clemson.
Game four saw much of the same as we had seen all weekend. La Salle’s Chase Swain knocked another home run in the first for the Explorers, but the Tigers would answer with two of their own in the home half. La Salle countered that response with a two-run homer of their own in the top of the second, retaking the lead, 3-2. Just as they did in the first, though, Clemson responded with two more runs in the second inning, and the race was on from there. The Tigers blew the doors open with a five-run third inning, highlighted by a three-run home run from Purify to stretch the lead to 9-3. Clemson would add three more runs in the fifth, capped by Savoie’s two-run RBI double that pushed the lead to 12-3. Seeking a knockout punch in the seventh, Savoie delivered once again with a massive grand slam to center field that would turn the lights off for La Salle and give Clemson their fourth run-rule victory in their last five games, 16-3.
Going back to Wednesday’s performance against Michigan State, the Tigers scored 64 runs this week and held their opponents to 13 runs over the span of five games. Clemson improves to 15-1 on the season, and they look like one of the hottest teams in America right now. The Tiger offense has come alive following the shutout in game one of the Palmetto Series, and it seems Bakich has finally put together a superb pitching staff that has some killer stuff. We didn’t get to see Aidan Knaak this weekend, but the pitching staff did not need him. Clemson has one more tune-up game versus Georgia Southern on Tuesday night before opening up conference play with a huge series against a top-5 Georgia Tech squad at DKS.
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