Clemson embracing pressure heading into FSU series

Everybody likes candy.

Not everybody likes pressure.

It can be the ruin of some teams and seasons, but for No. 4 Clemson, which rallied from a four-run deficit Tuesday night to beat Charleston Southern 6-5 in 11 innings, it has been a pretty sweet part of the Tigers’ 2017 campaign.

“We eat pressure like candy,” Clemson coach Monte Lee said. “We’re going to embrace pressure and enjoy those moments. It’s baseball. You’ve just got to compete.”

That was the message Lee sent to his team when they trailed 5-1 and he had them huddle in the dugout for a spirited speech in the fourth inning.

He liked the way they responded as Logan Davidson hit a three-run homer in the sixth, Chris Williams tied the score on a sacrifice fly in the ninth and Andrew Cox won the game on a walk-off single in the 11th.

“The worst thing that a baseball team or a group of young men can do is when they’re behind, feel the pressure, try to do too much,” Lee said. “The heart rate is higher when you’re down. You feel that anxiety and take a step back. Hopefully they listen to my message, which is to embrace the pressure.”

The Tigers are doing that and more this year. They’re 29-5, including 10-0 in midweek games. Clemson has won 15 of its past 16 games and is 13-2 in ACC play.

Lee’s squad has three conference sweeps and is 22-0 when scoring five runs or more this season.

“We couldn’t be in a better spot right now, especially coming off a come-from-behind win. It seems like we’ve been doing that a lot this year,” Clemson DH Reed Rohlman said Tuesday. “It never gets old to see how this team competes.”

Another sign of a team that handles pressure well is winning on the road. The Tigers are 8-1 away from Doug Kingsmore Stadium, but haven’t played a weekend series of this magnitude since taking two of three from South Carolina in March.

Clemson visits No. 25 Florida State for a three-game series beginning Saturday in Tallahassee, Fla.

The Seminoles (21-14) were the preseason favorite to win the conference, but they’re 7-8 in ACC play after losing three of their past four series to Virginia Tech, North Carolina and N.C. State.

“To beat Florida State, you’ve got to execute pitches, pound strikes,” Lee said. “It’s going to be a pressure-packed, high-intensity series. There’s going to be a high sense of urgency on their part.“

This story was originally published April 14, 2017 at 5:52 PM with the headline "Clemson embracing pressure heading into FSU series."