Jordan Greene delivers again as Clemson earns walk-off win in NCAA Tournament opener
Clemson second baseman Jordan Greene delivered what Tigers coach Monte Lee described as “the biggest at-bat of the year” for the team when he hit a walk-off homer against Florida State last month.
Clemson now has a new biggest at-bat of the year, and Greene is responsible for this one as well.
The junior hit a walk-off single to left in the bottom of the 10th inning Friday night against Morehead State to lift the Tigers to a 4-3 win in Clemson’s NCAA Tournament opener.
Clemson, the No. 1 seed in the regional, will face No. 2 seed Vanderbilt Saturday at 7 p.m. That game will be streamed on ESPN3 through the WatchESPN app.
Morehead State will face St. John’s in an elimination game at 1 p.m. on a short turnaround. Morehead State’s game against the Tigers did not end until after 12:30 a.m. due to a rain delay that delayed the start of Friday night's game nearly three hours.
“I knew I was going to get sliders. I knew what I was going to get so I was able to make sure I stayed on it just enough to get the hit and get it through the hole,” Greene said. “I felt like I had a good approach going up to the plate. I just wanted a good pitch to hit and it worked out for me.”
Drew Wharton led off the bottom of the 10th inning with a bloop single to right and moved to second on a sac bunt by Patrick Cromwell.
Greene then hit a 1-1 pitch through the left side between Eagles third baseman Eli Boggess and shortstop Reid Leonard, allowing Wharton to score easily from third.
“Anytime you’re the home team you feel pretty good about it in a tie ballgame because you get the last at-bat. You know we’re going to get the last crack at them,” Lee said. “Once we got the bunt down and we’ve got Jordan coming up in that situation you feel pretty good. You’ve got a veteran hitter. He was sitting on sliders… He did a good enough job of just staying on the baseball enough to get it through the six-hole, and he won the game for us.”
The Tigers (46-14) finished with 11 hits but stranded 10 base runners and struggled to score runs against a Morehead State pitching staff that entered with a team ERA of 5.89.
Morehead State (37-25) scored a pair of unearned runs in the second inning to take a 2-0 lead as the Tigers committed two errors in the frame.
Clemson finally got on the board in the fifth inning when Seth Beer hit a towering home run well over the wall in right field to cut Morehead State’s lead to 2-1.
The Eagles responded with a run in the top of the sixth when Niko Hulsizer led off the inning with a triple and scored on an RBI groundout by Connor Pauly.
But Clemson answered right back in the bottom of the sixth. Drew Wharton walked and Greene singled to set up a one-out RBI double by Justin Hawkins.
Catcher Kyle Wilkie tied the game later in the sixth on a two-out liner with the bases loaded that went off the glove of Leonard. Hawkins tried to score on the play but was thrown out at home to keep the game tied at 3.
Morehead State pitchers Dalton Stambaugh, TJ Satterly, Cory Conway and JC Hatcher did a nice job of keeping Clemson’s dangerous offense off balance as Stambaugh kept Clemson off the board for the first four innings.
He ended up allowing three earned runs in 5 1/3 innings of work.
Conway pitched 3 1/3 innings of relief and was credited with allowing one run as Hatcher entered with a runner on second in the 10th inning and gave up the game-winning single to Greene.
“I don’t know if we could’ve had a better test in Game 1 of the postseason,” Lee said. “Morehead State, what a great ballclub. I thought their starting pitcher Stambaugh just battled all night long… They gave us all that we could handle.”
Clemson got a strong start from righty Brooks Crawford, who allowed three runs, one earned, in 5 1/3 innings of work.
Tigers relievers Mat Clark, Carson Spiers, Ryan Miller and Ryley Gilliam combined to throw 4 2/3 scoreless innings of relief.
“I thought Brooks pitched extremely well, and our bullpen was phenomenal, as it’s been all year long,” Lee said. “And we had to use them. As much as we would’ve liked to have gotten through the game being able to save a couple of those guys, Morehead State just put us in a position where we had to use a number of go-to guys to win the ballgame.”
Clemson is likely to start lefty Jake Higginbotham against Vanderbilt, according to Lee. Commodores coach Tim Corbin said following Vandy’s win against St. John’s that he was unsure who Vanderbilt would start on Saturday.
The most likely options are junior righty Patrick Raby and freshman righty Mason Hickman.
“We’ve got a mystery opponent so I don’t know. We’ll just see how it plays out and then make a decision that’s best for us,” Corbin said Friday afternoon. “We’ve got a couple of more starters. I just think we want to match them up accordingly. It could be either or, but I haven’t had time to think about it at the moment.”
This story was originally published June 2, 2018 at 12:37 AM with the headline "Jordan Greene delivers again as Clemson earns walk-off win in NCAA Tournament opener."