Caden Grice mashes first inning homer to get Clemson on the board against Charlotte

With their backs against the wall, Caden Grice and the Clemson Tigers don’t want to go home.

Following a marathon loss to the Tennessee Volunteers on Saturday, Grice’s squad has to go through Charlotte on Sunday to keep their season alive. In the first inning, the Tigers star already started playing his part, hitting a bomb to give Clemson a 1-0 lead.

Check out the video of Grice’s perfect home run to begin the game below, starting off the afternoon with a bang.

CG 💣@CadenGrice3 gets us started with his 18th homer of the year‼️

T1 || CU 1, CLT 0

🖥 https://t.co/LIlo2z1cvz pic.twitter.com/dEJ0awUubx

— Clemson Baseball (@ClemsonBaseball) June 4, 2023

As Clemson Baseball mentioned on Twitter, it’s Grice’s 18th homer of the season, and a clutch one at that.

Time will tell if Caden Grice and Clemson can hold on and defeat the 49ers to move on to a rematch with the Volunteers, but home runs like Grice’s will certainly help. The tone has been set, now it’s up to the rest of the Tigers to follow.

Caden Grice, Billy Amick say Clemson baseball is bought into Erik Bakich’s system

In other news, Clemson baseball outlasted Lipscomb in a wild ride of a regional opener earlier this week. While the Tigers wound up winning by a pretty comfortable score, the early going featured some massive swings for both sides, with each team exploding for runs at various points.

Of course, it was Clemson who kept their bats hot all day and got into double digits before eventually winning, and after the game, both players and coaches credited the atmosphere in practice for having them ready. 

“I think it all comes back to our training and what we’ve been preparing for since day one of the fall when this new coaching staff came in,” said junior Caden Grice after the Lipscomb victory. “And just really buying into the idea of, you know, never out of the fight, regardless if there’s one out, two out, no outs. We just keep pushing, just keep doing us.

“I said earlier, I mean, we have a one through nine punch. We’re squared away from all sides. So I mean, it’s really really freeing to hit and line up like that. So I think that’s a really big key for us.”

Those sentiments were echoed by fellow Tiger Billy Amick, who smashed a grand slam into the roof of a building past the center field fence to put Clemson in command later in Friday afternoon’s game. 

“Yeah, like Caden said, the atmosphere today was awesome and especially in the ninth inning there,” he said. “But really, everything was great and it was really fun to play in front of. But we’re all going up there with the same mindset in mind: just be really tough and get our job done, whatever it is.”