Clemson head coach Monte Lee feels very good about his team’s chance to come out of this weekend’s Clemson Regional and advance to the Super Regional Round of the NCAA Baseball Tournament.
However, he does have one concern. Will his team get to practice before Thursday?
Heavy rains hit the Clemson area on Monday and more are expected for this area over the next two days. Obviously, that presents a problem for the Tigers as they prepare to play Morehead State at Doug Kingsmore Stadium Friday at 6 p.m.
“My biggest concern, quietly frankly, is the weather and just being able to prepare our team for this weekend,” Lee said Monday after the Tigers were selected as the 10th overall seed in the NCAA Tournament. “It rained today so we are inside and it looks like we may be inside for three days in a row.
“That is the biggest concern for me as a head coach is just trying to do everything I can to prepare our team for the weekend with limited ability in terms of being able to get on the field and practice the way that we would want to practice in preparation for a regional.”
Besides hosting Morehead State, the Tigers will also host Vanderbilt and St. John’s in the Clemson Regional. Both are familiar foes to Clemson. They both played in last year’s Clemson Regional a regional Vanderbilt won by beating St. John’s once and Clemson twice.
“It does (feel familiar),” Lee said. “We will begin looking at those clubs this afternoon and just try to figure out their personnel, their pitching staffs, their strengths and weaknesses of each club. I’m sure they will be doing the same with us.
“Every year is a different year. Every team is a different team so regardless of the fact that we have St. John’s and Vanderbilt back in our regional again, they are different clubs than they were last year and we are a different team than we were last year so I don’t put a whole lot of stock into that. We are excited for the opportunity to be here at home and see if we can play good baseball.”
St. John’s and Vanderbilt will get the Clemson Regional started at noon Friday in Game 1. Clemson and Morehead State will play Game 2 at 6 p.m.
“I think this is going to be a good experience,” said Clemson outfielder Seth Beer. “These are some great teams that are in our regional and the one that we matchup with (Tallahassee Regional). No matter what happens, there are some good ball clubs in there so it should be some good baseball.”