Clemson opens up the regional play against the Lipscomb Bison team on Friday at 1:00 pm at Doug Kingsmore Stadium. Let’s preview the Clemson regional opening game.
Lipscomb By The Numbers
Lipscomb is 36-24 overall on the season and the ASUN Champions. Lipscomb lost their first two games of the ASUN tournament but still found a way to win the overall tournament championship. The Bison are 14-15 overall in true road games on the season. Lipscomb is #89th in the RPI and has the #158 overall strength of schedule rank also. The Bison are a combined 8-14 against RPI top 100 teams.
Lipscomb has faced some good teams on the year, won two out of three from Notre Dame, and defeated Arkansas in a midweek game. The Bison were however swept by Auburn, Mississippi State and lost midweek games to Vanderbilt, and Tennessee (also in the Clemson regional).
Who Will Clemson See On The Mound For Lipscomb?
Lipscomb is led on the mound by junior left-hander Logan Van Treeck. Van Treeck is 8-4 on the year and has two complete games. Van Treeck boasts a team-best 3.50 ERA and a .9 WHIP. The junior southpaw has pitched a total of 82.1 innings and given up just 62 hits and 36 runs (32 earned runs). The opponents are only hitting .207 against Van Treeck. As for the rest of the Bison pitching staff they have a total team ERA of 5.06 and teams are only hitting .236 against Lipscomb pitching.
Biggest Threats In The Lipscomb Lineup?
Lipscomb is only hitting .257 combined as a team, led by sophomore Trace Willhoite with a .311 batting average. Lipscomb doesnβt hit for a very high average but they have had 106 total home runs as a team. When Lipscomb batters do get on base they are very active on the basepaths with 99 stolen bases on 127 total attempts. Lipscomb does have two players in their every day lineup with over 20 home runs, Austin Kelly and Alex Vergara, both with 21 round trippers on the year. This Lipscomb lineup has the potential to give teams some trouble in this tournament. Lipscomb is scoring an average of 6.8 runs per game.
Tournament history?
This will be Lipscombβs third trip to the NCAA baseball postseason. Their overall record in NCAA Tournament games is 1-4.
What Will Happen?
Erik Bakich chose the 1:00 pm game to open up this regional tournament just to make sure that this game got played without the threat of any weather or any other crazy thing happening.
Austin Gordon will get the start on the mound for the Tigers and will look to send Clemson into the winners’ bracket of the tournament. Clemson should be at full strength on the mound and at the plate with the expectation being that Cooper Ingle will be back at 100% after taking a foul ball off the knee in the ACC Championship and expecting to have Rob Hughes and Casey Tallent back at full go.
I fully expect Clemson to come out and continue the dominance over their opponents and win the regional opener handily. Lipscomb is a dangerous team, but Clemson is playing like one of the best teams in the country and there is no denying that they are as hot as anyone in the country coming in with 16 consecutive wins. My expectation is that Clemson wins this first game and advances to the winners’ bracket where they will await the winner of the Tennessee vs Charlotte game.
Clemson is looking to advance out of the regional portion of postseason play for the first time since 2010 and it all starts Friday afternoon against Lipscomb.
