Erik Bakich shares challenging emotions of season ending at Clemson

Clemson went into NCAA Regionals as the No. 4 overall seed but found out what others hosting regionals also learned. Exiting the regional intact is never a guarantee and the season ending is a real possibility.

The Tigers had a particularly tough draw, getting a Tennessee team with a lot of talent in its regional.

Tennessee came out on top in an absolutely sensational 14-inning game after each team had won its opening game, blowing through a lot of the Clemson arms and taking a huge emotional toll. The Tigers couldn’t recover in time, with the season ending as they fell to Charlotte 3-2.

“Yeah, I mean any time you’re not the last team standing you’re going to have these scars that don’t heal,” coach Erik Bakich said. “And those go back a long time because you just look at what could you have done, what should we have done and everybody’s going to want to Monday morning quarterback certain decisions. Should have thrown this guy, should have taken him out, should have left him in, should have bunted, should have swung away, whatever.

“But you just got to live with it and move on. That’s where the resiliency of the players is special, because they have a short memory and they can put it behind them quickly.”

It surely won’t be easy for the Tigers, whose season ending only happened by way of two one-run losses. That’s always extra tough.

Meanwhile, Clemson’s cross-state rival, South Carolina, advanced to the Super Regional stage, adding insult to injury. For Clemson, though, the losses will sting precisely because they were so close.

“I think as coaches we’ll probably go through that game last night thinking what could we have done different to come out on top,” Bakich said.

Still, what’s done is done and Bakich and the Tigers will eventually move on with the season ending. He’s hopeful some positives can emerge from it down the road.

“All of it is just another repetition that callouses the mind and makes you better,” Bakich said. “This program will be better for it even though it sucks right now because it’s an opportunity missed. It’s real easy to play the woulda, coulda, shoulda game and Riley (Bertram‘s) heard me say this for a lot of years: Only the losing team says woulda, coulda, shoulda.

“It just didn’t happen and we’re not going to make excuses for it. We just didn’t get it done. But as coaches I think that’s where we’ll beat ourselves up a little bit for every little decision.”