Battered: Kentucky baseball thumps Clemson, eliminates Tigers from NCAAs
Clemson baseball’s season has ended in a familiar spot:
Its home ballpark.
The Tigers were booted from the postseason with a 16-4 loss to Kentucky in an NCAA regional elimination game on Sunday at Doug Kingsmore Stadium
Clemson has now failed to advance out of a regional it hosted for the second time in three years and sixth time in seven tries. The team’s streak of missing the College World Series in Omaha has also hit 15 years (2010).
Roughly 12 hours after collapsing against West Virginia on Saturday, Clemson (45-18) didn’t look like it was playing in a must-win game against Kentucky. The Tigers were plagued by poor pitching, poor defense and poor execution against Kentucky (31-25) in one of the more demoralizing losses of coach Erik Bakich’s three-year tenure.
“No good takeaways from today,” Bakich said postgame.
Game recap
In a game in which Bakich promised his team would “empty the tank,” Clemson’s outfield committed four errors in the first four innings and the Tigers burned through five pitchers after true freshman starter Talan Bell struggled.
After trailing 2-0 in the top of the first inning, Kentucky ripped off 11 runs in a two-inning span — including multiple scores on errors, wild pitches and free passes — to blow the game open and take a 13-3 lead on Clemson after four innings.
It didn’t get any better from there. Clemson’s bats went cold on offense again — the Tigers’ only run from the second through sixth inning came on a wild pitch — and they tallied a stunning seven outfield errors in less than six full innings.
Clemson, the No. 1 seed in its region and No. 11 overall seed in the 64-team field, ultimately used six pitchers who surrendered 16 runs and 13 hits to Kentucky. The Wildcats, who entered batting .267, hit a scorching .470 (16-34) as a team.
The Tigers, meanwhile, hit .257 (9-35) as a team, struck out 11 times and mustered just two runs in the last eight innings after scoring two runs in the top of the first.
Clemson’s six pitchers allowed five unearned runs, four walks and three hit by pitches. Four of six pitchers (Bell, Jacob McGovern, Justin LeGuernic and B.J. Bailey) allowed at least three runs apiece. Another, Nathan Dvorsky, lasted just eight pitches.
“Today obviously sucked,” Bakich said. “I don’t want to overly dwell on how poorly we played in the game today, when, big picture, we have a group of seniors and a group of players that deserved a better finish than this.”
“So that’s really the most disappointing thing, more disappointing than than seven errors and too many free passes and all the stuff.”
‘Didn’t finish where we wanted’
Clemson, which reached the super regionals in 2024, has now failed to advance out of a regional it was hosting for the second time in three seasons under Bakich.
This is also the sixth time in seven tries — across three different coaches — that Clemson baseball has failed to advance out of a NCAA home regional and the 11th time in 12 regional appearances that Clemson’s been eliminated. The Tigers were swept 2-0 at home by Florida in their super regional appearance last year.
“Things didn’t go the way we expected or wanted, but this place still changed my life and gave me one of the best years of my life,” Clemson transfer left fielder Dominic Listi said. “It’s been amazing, even though we didn’t get where we wanted to.”
With the win, No. 3 seed Kentucky advanced to Sunday night’s regional championship against No. 2 West Virginia, a game the Mountaineers won to advance to the super regionals.
Clemson’s regional is paired with the Baton Rouge Regional, featuring No. 6 LSU.
Bakich said he felt like this year’s Clemson team overachieved, given how much production it lost from 2024. The Tigers, who ranked as high as No. 2 in the country in late April, will look back and find some positives in a year that included a sweep of rival South Carolina as well as a run to the ACC tournament championship game.
But getting hammered by 12 runs in an elimination game is going to leave a mark.
Same for the fact that Cam Cannarella, Clemson’s star junior center fielder, a likely first-round MLB Draft pick who delivered time and time again in the postseason and could wind up getting his jersey honored at DKS, will never play in Omaha.
“When you look at our stats, it doesn’t equal 45 wins,” Bakich said. “These guys emptied the tank and really squeezed every drop of everything to have some of the success we’ve had this year. ... But we didn’t finish where we wanted to.”
2025 Clemson baseball regional scores
Friday, May 30
Game 1: No. 2 West Virginia 4, No. 3 Kentucky 3
Game 2: No. 1 Clemson 7, No. 4 USC Upstate 3
Saturday, May 31
Game 3: No. 3 Kentucky 7, No. 4 USC Upstate 3
Game 4: No. 2 West Virginia 9, No. 1 Clemson 6
Sunday, June 1
Game 5: No. 3 Kentucky 16, No. 1 Clemson, 4
Game 6: No. 2 West Virginia 13, No. 3 Kentucky 12
This story was originally published June 1, 2025 at 3:34 PM.
