Georgia Tech’s ACC Tournament game against Clemson Wednesday night didn’t have any bearing on its attempt to advance out of pool play. For the Yellow Jackets, it was just as well.
Relying on the back end of the bullpen and its No. 4 starter, Tech was drubbed 11-5 by the Tigers at Truist Field in Charlotte, N.C., in the Jackets’ opening game of the tournament. Because of the unusual format of the tournament, it will only be Tech’s Thursday-afternoon game against Louisville that will decide who wins the three-team pool and moves on to Saturday’s semifinal.
“Our goal (of winning the tournament) is still right in front of us,” Tech coach Danny Hall said after the game.
Tech took a 3-0 lead after three innings and appeared to be on its way to cruising to a win over the Tigers, who were eliminated from contention with their Tuesday loss to Louisville. But Clemson responded by scoring the next 11 runs, pounding out three triples and three home runs among its 11 hits.
No. 9 hitter Bryce Teodosio contributed three of those extra-base hits for Clemson – two triples and an inside-the-park home run in the bottom of the sixth, when his drive to deep center off reliever John Medich just eluded a leaping Tres Gonzalez and then ricocheted off the wall, giving Teodosio the time to speed around the bases.
“I liked the first three innings,” Hall said. “I didn’t like the last six very well.”
The Tech-Clemson game did not carry meaning because of the tournament’s structure. For each of the four three-team pools, the team with the best record advances, but if two (or three) teams have the best record at 1-1, the highest-seeded team advances. In this case, that would be the Jackets as the No. 2 seed over No. 7 Louisville or No. 11 Clemson.
In this case, with Louisville at 1-0 and Clemson at 0-1, Tech needs only to beat the Cardinals to earn a 1-1 record and make it to the semifinals.
Hall approached the Clemson game in that vein, sending out Dalton Smith to start rather than one of his three weekend starters. Two of the relievers after Smith, Medich and Brody Westbrooks, have been little-used this season.
“We knew before this game started (Wednesday) that we were going to play Louisville in kind of a winner-take-all (game), so there won’t be any carryover,” Hall said. “We’ve just got to let this one go, put all of our energy and our effort to playing well (Thursday).”
Hall saved ace Brant Hurter for Louisville, along with top relievers such as Zach Maxwell and Luke Bartnicki. Even starters Andy Archer and Marquis Grissom will be available.
“I think it’s all hands on deck, quite honestly,” Hall said.
Regardless, it was not an ideal warmup for a game that will decide whether or not the Coastal Division champion Jackets move on to the semifinals, which would also help their bid for a possible No. 1 seed in their NCAA regional next weekend.
“(Hall) just said we’ve got to clear it,” said right fielder Stephen Reid, who hit his seventh and eighth home runs of the season Wednesday, the third two-homer game of his career. “We play every game 100 percent, so clear it and then come back (Thursday). We’ve got a lot of guys that we like to throw, like to have on the mound, so we just feel just as good as any game coming back (Thursday).”
Tech (28-22) took its 3-0 lead on a manufactured run by Luke Waddell in the first and solo home runs by Reid and Andrew Jenkins in the second and third, respectively. (Jenkins continued his torrid hitting; he is hitting .380 in his last 18 games.) With Clemson (25-27) having nothing to play for – the loss to Louisville clinched the team’s first losing season since 1957 and put to bed any remaining hopes of extending the Tigers’ run of 11 consecutive NCAA Tournament berths – it seemed perhaps the Jackets could steamroll the Tigers.
That scenario did not last long, however. In the bottom of the fourth, Clemson’s Adam Hackenberg dueled Smith in a 14-pitch at-bat, finally triumphing by launching an off-speed pitch into the left-field stands for a game-tying three-run home run. Hackenberg fouled off eight pitches after Smith got the count to 1-2. The game continued to unravel from there. Clemson starter and Mill Creek High grad Davis Sharpe, meanwhile, retired 10 consecutive Jackets after giving up the home run to Jenkins in the third.
“I think the one that really hurt was just Hackenberg,” Hall said. “The kid had a great at-bat and got them back in the game, kind of energized them and then we couldn’t shut their momentum down from that point on.”
In Louisville, Tech will face a team that hit seven home runs against Clemson, an ACC Tournament record. While losing, the Jackets hit three on Wednesday, tying their season high against an ACC opponent and seeming to additionally confirm the perception of the stadium as a hitter’s park.
“If you make pitches, the ballpark plays fine,” Hall said. “But if you don’t and somebody gets the ball in the air, it’s got a chance to do some damage.”
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