After a walk-off win on Thursday night, the Hurricanes were set up to do it again, as they found themselves down one run heading into the bottom of the ninth. Unfortunately for them, the offense could not come through again, and No. 3-ranked Clemson was able to win game two of the series, 3-2, on Friday night at Mark Light Field.
Early on, it looked as if this game was going to be a shootout as Clemson jumped on Miami starter Rafe Schlesinger, scoring on a Jimmy Obertop double with nobody out in the first inning. The Tigers were able to add one more in that frame to get out to a 2-0 lead.
The ’Canes immediately responded by adding a run on a Dorian Gonzalez Jr. RBI groundout. While UM did score in the first, it missed out on an opportunity to put a crooked number on the scoreboard as it had the bases loaded and nobody out and failed to capitalize.
In the fourth inning, both squads ended up trading runs, as Clemson scored on an RBI single from Jarren Purify and Miami scored on a single by Jason Torres. Somehow, after four innings, this was the end of the scoring for the entire game.
One reason for the lack of scoring after the fourth inning was the outstanding performances from both teams’ pitching staffs that carried over from Thursday night. Bouncing back from a rough start against Notre Dame last weekend, Schlesinger was incredible aside from the first inning.
His final line was 7.0 innings pitched with three earned runs, five hits, two walks and eight strikeouts. As his start went on, he seemed to get more and more dominant. Four of his eight strikeouts came in the sixth and seventh innings. Jumping up and down exiting the field, his energy filled the entire stadium, getting the dugout and the fans fired up late in the game.
The ’Canes bullpen also did their job, holding the Tigers scoreless in the eighth and ninth, although Clemson had some chances to score. Clemson had runners on first and third with nobody out in the eighth before Brian Walters got a huge strikeout, and Myles Caba got an inning ending double play to escape the jam.
In the ninth, Nick Robert found himself in trouble with Clemson’s best hitter, Blake Wright, at the plate with the bases loaded and two outs. Wright hit a deep fly ball to the warning track that Jacoby Long was able to track down and stop the Tiger’s threat in the ninth.
While the UM pitching staff did a great job, the Clemson staff did even better. Using four pitchers spread out over the nine innings, the staff combined to give up only five hits, three walks and ten strikeouts on just the two runs. Not one pitcher particularly stood out, but they all did their jobs and got the ball to the next guy up.
On the offensive side, the hitting was not up to par, but there were some blown opportunities to score, like the one in the first inning with the bases loaded and no one out. The ’Canes found the bases loaded with nobody out once again in the fourth inning, and like the first inning, failed to capitalize with a groundball back to the pitcher, followed by back-to-back strikeouts.
Some notable hitters for Miami on Thursday night were Daniel Cuvet and Torres. They each logged two hits, including a double for them both. The only other ’Canes to get base hits in this contest were Gonzales, Blake Cyr and Jack Scanlon.