Scouting the Cowboys

By: Will Vandervort

Friday night’s win over Tennessee Tech was pretty much what I expected in the first game of the Clemson Regional.

There was no doubt the Golden Eagles were going to give Clemson their best shot and that’s what they did. But in the end, this Clemson team, like it has done so many times this year, hung in there and found a way to pull it out in the end.

They got good relief pitching from Graham Stoneburner to keep things close and then Jeff Schaus came though in the clutch with a double in the bottom of the ninth inning to drive in the tying and winning-run in the 5-4 victory.

Now it is time to face Oklahoma State tonight at 7 p.m. The Cowboys beat No. 2 seed Alabama 10-6 Friday to advance into the winners’ brackets showdown with Clemson. Tom Belza, who had only two home runs also season, hit three home runs in the win, including a grand slam in the first inning.

Oklahoma State is hitting .304 with a .506 slugging percentage and .384 on-base percentage coming into the tournament. The Cowboys are averaging better than 7 runs a game as well.

Tyrone Hambly is hitting a team-high .338 with nine homers and 38 RBIs, while Neil Medchill is batting .337 with a team-high 14 home runs and 55 RBIs. Michael Dabbs is hitting .335 with 13 homers, 38 RBIs and has 11 stolen bases. Davis Duren has added a team-high 14 stolen bases in 15 attempts as well.

The pitching staff has a 4.60 ERA and .260 opponents’ batting average and has allowed 187 walks against 486 strikeouts, good for a 2.6-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Freshman righthander Randy McCurry has a team-high nine saves, 3-1 record, 2.45 ERA, and 49 strikeouts in 36.2 innings pitched over a team-high 25 relief appearances.

“Oklahoma State will be a tough opponent tomorrow. I saw 3 innings (of their game) earlier, and it’s not going to be easy. I expected a hard game (yesterday), now we can focus on (tonight),” Clemson coach Jack Leggett said.

The Tigers are expected to send left-hand pitcher Casey Harman (7-3, 3.86 ERA) to the mound tonight, while the Cowboys will counter with either junior righty Tyler Blandford (7-3, 4.83 ERA) or 6-foot-3 junior lefty Andrew Oliver (5-6, 5.58).

Clemson and Oklahoma State have met three times on the diamond, with the Tigers holding a 2-1 lead in the series dating back to 1991. The two teams last met in the 1996 College World Series. The Tigers
eliminated the Cowboys with an 8-5 victory.

Coincidentally, the Tigers’ next game was against Alabama. Both of those meetings were the last time the Tigers faced Oklahoma State and Alabama, respectively.

In 1995, the Tigers opened the season with a 5-2 loss against the Cowboys in a tournament at Arlington, Texas. The Tigers also topped Oklahoma State 6-0 in 1991 in the UNLV Desert Classic at Las Vegas. Therefore, all three meetings have been at neutral sites. The Tigers also own a 1-1 record under Leggett.

Finally we can talk about the NCAA Regional

By: Will Vandervort

What a week it has been at Clemson.

First there is Terrence Oglesby’s news to turn professional and then Barry Humphries arrest and the way it was kept quiet for so long. Both of those news items have dominated the talk so much the last three days in this small college town it is seems as if we all forgot there is a pretty big baseball tournament this weekend.

Finally, I hope, this weekend will be all about the Clemson baseball team which as we all know by now is hosting an NCAA Regional for a 12th time. This is the first time since 2006 — Clemson’s last trip to the College World Series — the Tigers will play at home.

Clemson will play Tennessee Tech at 7 p.m. today inside Doug Kingsmore Stadium, following second seed Alabama and No. 3 Oklahoma State’s 3 p.m. game.

The Tigers (40-19) are 22-1 at home during the current Regional-Super Regional format which began in 1999. Overall, the Tigers are 32-5 under head coach Jack Leggett at home in the NCAA Tournament.

“I think we are very comfortable here,” said Leggett, whose Tigers are 27-8 at home this season. “Usually when you get a regional, it means that you have a good enough team. We have a great atmosphere and fans here. You have to go out on the field and play ball and prove that you earned it.”

The Tigers will try to do that against a pretty strong field the next couple of days. Tennessee Tech is the conference tournament champion of the Ohio Valley Conference and is a very confident team coming in. Then there is Alabama, who is perhaps the best hitting team in the tournament, and then there is Oklahoma State.

Though some might say the Cowboys should not have gotten in the field this year, the point is they are here and they have a track record for being one of the more successful teams in the country when they get in the tournament.

“It hasn’t bothered our guys at all,” said Oklahoma State coach Frank Anderson on the on scrutiny of making the tournament. “A few years ago we got into the tournament as the No. 2 seed in our conference, but we barely made it because our RPI was low. The NCAA parameters are pretty black and white and we have raised our RPI now.”

Anderson, like Leggett, views the Clemson Regional as one of the stronger fields in the tournament.

“Anytime you are playing in an NCAA Regional, there are going to be good teams,” he said. “It is no different here. There are four really good teams playing this weekend.”

Anderson’s team will have his hands full against an Alabama team that is led by National Player of the Year candidate Kent Matthes.

“We were surprised to some degree that he would have as good a season as he is having,” Alabama head coach Jim Wells said. “We did not see it coming. He just started hitting the ball really well and we thought it was just a nice streak, but it is still going.

“He is the kind of player that is good at everything. He runs well and fields well. He is the same guy every day.”

He is a guy that is hitting a team-high .365 and leads the nation with 28 home runs, 81 RBIs and a .883 slugging percentage. He also has 13 steals in 15 attempts.

“He is one of those top 5-to-10 guys in the country that really stands out,” Anderson said. “This year there aren’t players like Buster Posey and (Matt) Weiters, but he is their target guy and we have to watch out for him.”

As for the Tigers, they come into the regional feeling good about themselves. Though they went 1-2 in the ACC Tournament last week, they did close things with an emotional win against No. 5 national seed North Carolina and come into this weekend as winners in 15 of their last 20 games.

“We did a good job coming back. I thought we only had a few bad innings during the tournament,” Leggett said. “The way we played against North Carolina, I couldn’t have been happier to get the win.”

And Clemson can’t be any happier about hosting a regional and finally having people talking about the baseball team again, like it should have been all week long.

Clemson and Memorial Day

By: Will Vandervort

I hope everyone had a good holiday weekend and took a few moments yesterday to stop and think about those that sacrificed their own lives so that we may be free.

Being that this is a Clemson blog, we especially need to remember and honor those soldiers that lost their lives in war while protecting us. Some of them, as you know, were either Clemson graduates or students. So please remember all of our fallen soldiers and their families and give thanks to them for what they did for us, if you have not already.

Speaking of Memorial Day in reference to Clemson, did you know that the first 20,000 seats in Clemson Memorial Stadium were built and ready for use before the 1942 season, less than a year after Pearl Harbor was bombed and the United States was drawn into World War II?

Clemson, known for its military heritage, named its football stadium in memory of those former Clemson Cadets that lost their lives in war. The University honors those soldiers and its military heritage each year with Military Appreciation Day.

This upcoming fall, Clemson’s home game against Virginia on Nov. 21, is the day Clemson will honor all of its fallen, former and current soldiers who have or are currently serving our country in the U.S. Armed Forces.

My stepfather, Carl E. Buck, Jr., was a War World II veteran and a 1949 graduate of Clemson A&M College. Until the day he passed away in October of 2006, he always spoke highly of Clemson primarily because of the way it honors and respects its military heritage. When speaking to anyone, he always referred to Clemson as Clemson A&M College instead of Clemson University.

My passion for all things Clemson is rooted through what was his passion for Clemson. Obviously, I learned as a young boy what Clemson’s heritage and traditions were all about and I try to share what I’ve learned through my stepfather’s experiences with anyone that is willing to listen.

Even though my stepfather taught and shared a lot of things about Clemson, I’m still learning today about the school’s history. Just recently I learned the World Wars saw a flurry of cadets leave Clemson for active duty and the campus itself became a base for military training.

That’s something I did not know.

World War I saw nearly every cadet in the classes of 1917 and 1918 enlist, and at one point the college had only 42 active student-cadets. World War II saw even greater involvement. Airborne troops training at Camp Toccoa, just across the Georgia border, would march 30 or so miles to Clemson to practice on the campus rifle range.

At the time, Clemson ranked third in the country in institutions providing Army officers. Only the United States Military Academy and Texas A&M provided more.

Before 1955, Clemson decided to drop its military status and became more of a civilian institution and started to enroll women in the fall of 1954. In 1955, Clemson officially became Clemson College and in 1964 it changed its name again to what it is known as today as Clemson University.

Though Clemson is still more than 50 years removed from its military roots, there are still signs all over campus about its past. There are two bronze Civil War cannons, nicknamed Tom and Jerry, that stand watch over Bowman Field, where they have been since 1951.

Bowman Field itself is rich with military history as it served as the place for many military activities and drills during the World Wars.

Then there is the cadet statue in the Military Heritage Plaza, which more than anything reflects Clemson’s rich military heritage. And then of course there is Memorial Stadium.

To learn more about Clemson’s military heritage or anything about the University, I recommend the book “Clemson: There’s Something In These Hills” which was written by Trent Allen and has great photos by my good friend Kevin Bray.

You can find the book at my sponsor’s store — Clemson Variety and Frame Shop — in downtown Clemson or, if you can’t make it to Clemson, click on their link to their Web site to the right of this blog and then go to Clemson Collectibles and then click for the home. You will find the book in that listing.