Bryce Teodosio tripled twice and hit an inside-the-park home run to lead Clemson to an 11-5 victory over Georgia Tech on Wednesday night at the ACC baseball tournament in Uptown Charlotte. According to Clemson, Teodosio is the first Tiger to hit two triples in a game at the ACC tournament since Steve Williams, also against Georgia Tech, in 1991. His inside-the-park HR was the second of his career. The other occurred in 2019 at Boston College.
“Really proud of my club, the way we finished the season,” Clemson head coach Monte Lee said in his postgame press conference. “The guys had a lot of fun tonight”.
Those comments may have been the understatement of a very tough season as the Tigers certainly enjoyed themselves with eleven runs off of eleven base hits. But it didn’t start out that way for Clemson as Georgia Tech grabbed an early 3-0 lead with a little help from the Tigers.
Despite being the tournament’s #2-seed, Georgia Tech was the visiting team against the Tigers and the Yellow Jackets wasted no time in taking advantage of that first at-bat. After a lead-off single and a groundout, Luke Waddell attempted to steal third. On the play, Clemson catcher Adam Hackenberg’s throw was off the mark, allowing Waddell to score on the error.
In the second inning, Stephen Reid hit the first of his two home runs on the night to up Georgia Tech’s advantage to 2-0. The long ball worked so well in the second, the Yellow Jackets thought they would try again in the third as Andrew Jenkins blasted a solo shot to left centerfield to increase the cushion to 3-0. However, that was all the Coastal Division champions would get off of Clemson starter Davis Sharpe.
The redshirt sophomore was as accurate as his last name would lead you to believe. Sharpe allowed just three runs in seven innings while striking out eight to record his fourth win of the season. His work on the mound also gave Teodosio and his teammates a chance to solve Georgia Tech’s starter Dalton Smith.
The Tigers scored four times in the fourth inning on a three-run home run from Hackenberg, in a plate appearance that Monte Lee said was, “one of the best at-bats I’ve ever seen. I think it was a 14 pitch at bat and he hit the ball out of the ball park”.
Clemson also picked up a run on one of the two triples from Teodosio. The RBI base hit pushed Clemson into the lead for good at 4-3 heading to the fifth, where Caden Grice got into the act. His RBI single changed the scoreboard to 5-3 as Clemson started to flex its offensive muscle.
The sixth inning was highlighted by Teodosio’s inside-the-park home run to centerfield, along with a two-run double by James Parker. Clemson closed out its scoring on an RBI triple from Teodosio in the seventh and a two-run home run from Parker in the eighth.
Georgia Tech got its final tally of the night courtesy of the second home run of the game from Reid in the top of the 9th inning.
Clemson wraps up its season at 25-27 overall, the first losing record for the Tigers program since 1957. Meantime, Georgia Tech will play Louisville on Thursday afternoon for the “Pool B” championship. The winner of that game will advance to the ACC semifinals on Saturday against the winner of “Pool C”.
