No. 10 Louisville rallies past Clemson. Tigers take series
No. 24 Clemson was unable to finish off a series sweep of No. 10 Louisville as the Tigers suffered a 7-4 loss in 11 innings Sunday afternoon at Doug Kingsmore Stadium.
Still, it was a successful weekend for a Clemson squad that finishes the first half of ACC play with an 11-4 record in the league.
Clemson won two out of three games against the Cardinals to earn its third consecutive ACC series victory. The Tigers are now 7-2 in their last nine ACC games entering a three-game series at Florida State (19-12, 7-8) next weekend.
“I’m proud of our guys. I don’t have too many negatives,” Tigers coach Monte Lee said. “As a coach I’ve got to continue to address the areas that we need to improve on and keep our confidence up and hopefully we’ll continue to get better.”
Louisville scored three runs in the decisive 11th inning with Alex Binelas and Drew Campbell hitting solo homers and Tyler Fitzgerald adding an RBI single. All three runs were scored off Tigers reliever Carson Spiers (1-2).
Clemson (24-8, 11-4) had a chance to tie the game in the bottom of the 11th inning but its best hitter, Logan Davidson, struck out with two runners on to end the game.
The Tigers also had chances to win before the game ever got to extras as Clemson had a runner at third with one out in the seventh inning and a runner at second with one out in the ninth inning but did not score either time.
“We’ve gotta be able to execute better offensively. That’s something that as a coach we’ll continue to address and work on,” Lee said.
Clemson got strong pitching performances from Davis Sharpe and Mat Clark in the first two games of the series to jump out to a 2-0 series lead.
Sharpe allowed one run in 6 2/3 innings Friday night and Clark allowed one run in 7 1/3 innings Saturday night as Clemson earned 5-1 and 6-3 victories.
But the starting pitching success did not continue into Sunday as freshman Keyshawn Askew struggled, allowing three runs in 2 2/3 innings. Clemson’s bullpen pitched well with Sam Weatherly allowing one run in 3 2/3 innings and Holt Jones not allowing a base runner in 2 2/3 innings, but Clemson’s offense was unable to produce much.
After Louisville (24-8, 10-5) jumped out to an early 3-0 lead the Tigers tied the game at 3 in the bottom of the third inning on a sac fly by Sam Hall and two-run homer by Davidson. But the only run the rest of the way came on an RBI single by James Parker in the fourth.
“We’ve gotta find a way again to compete a little better on Sundays. I feel like on Sundays we’ve gotta be better,” Lee said. “But there’s a lot of clubs that would like to be sitting at the halfway point in ACC play at 11-4.”
This story was originally published April 7, 2019 at 4:01 PM.