After last season’s early NCAA Tournament exit, Blake Wright and the Clemson Tigers are motivated to make a deep run in the tournament – and get to Omaha – this season.

Clemson lost a heartbreaking game to Tennessee in the winner’s bracket game last year in the Clemson Regional. The Volunteers rallied to beat the Tigers 6-5 in 14 innings, and then the following day, Charlotte rallied past the Tigers 3-2 to end Clemson’s season.

Now, a year later, the Tigers (41-14) enter the NCAA Tournament as the No. 6 national seed and No. 1 seed in the Clemson Regional this weekend at Doug Kingsmore Stadium.

And according to Wright, the feeling of how last season ended has been a driving force in what the Tigers have accomplished to this point.

“For sure. I think it’s driven everything we’ve done this year,” the All-ACC infielder said following the announcement of Clemson’s regional field on Monday.

“We want to get back to Omaha,” Wright added, “and it all starts this weekend.”

Clemson’s last College World Series appearance came back in 2010, when Jack Leggett was the Tigers’ head coach.

Wright says the Tigers are well aware it’s been quite some time since Clemson went to Omaha, but at the same time, this year’s team isn’t dwelling on the past but rather focused on the task at hand in this year’s regional.

“Yeah, definitely,” Wright said when asked if the Tigers have talked about the fact they haven’t made it to Omaha in over a decade.

“But it is what it is. It has nothing to do with this year, so we’re taking it one game at a time, ready to go.”

In their opening game of the Clemson Regional, the Tigers will face No. 4 seed High Point (34-25), while No. 2 seed Vanderbilt (38-21) and No. 3 seed Coastal Carolina (34-23) round out the regional field.

The Tigers, who have failed to win an NCAA Regional in each of their last 10 tries, are looking to advance out of a regional for the first time since 2010, when it won the Auburn Regional.

Of Clemson’s 41 wins this season, 24 of them have come in comeback fashion – and the Tigers certainly won’t panic in the event they fall behind this weekend.

“I mean, every time we go down, we kind of get together, we’re like, ‘We’ve been here before, we’ve been in this situation,’” said Wright, a second-team all-conference selection who leads the team in home runs (21) and RBIs (70) to go with his .341 batting average.

“So, we just trust everything that we do, trust our preparation and we just trust that motto, ‘We’re never out of the fight.’ So, it doesn’t matter what the scoreboard says. The game goes nine innings, and that’s what we’re gonna do.”