Clemson took control early on in Saturday’s fall scrimmage at Doug Kingsmore Stadium, overtaking the UAB blazers 20-8. A six-run second inning secured the exhibition win for the Tigers with big-time hits from both catcher Cooper Ingle and outfielder Chad Fairey, who together accounted for six of Clemson’s twenty runs on the day.
Through fourteen innings of play, Clemson put together 20 runs on 19 hits with 5 homers and 2 errors along with putting fourteen different Tigers on the mound.
“It was just a great day of baseball for us,” head coach Monte Lee told The Clemson Insider. “To be able to play fourteen innings against somebody else. Really appreciate UAB coming up to play us here and I thought the guys played really really well. Thought we threw the ball really well, you know, had an inning or two where we had some mishaps and we gave them too many free 90’s, but overall, I thought our pitching staff did a great job and we swung the bats extremely well. A lot of quality at-bats, competitive at-bats.”
“Defensively, I thought we played really well. Ran the bases really hard, a lot of dirt ball reads, first to thirds, and just did a good job on the bases. Still a lot of areas to improve on, but we got a chance to play every position player who was healthy and available, and we threw fourteen different pitchers today. All in all, I thought we did great.”
The Tigers got on the board first thanks to a leadoff homer to right field by sophomore Cooper Ingle along with a two-run bomb also to right field from Chad Fairey. Clemson’s bats continued to stay hot into the second, tacking on six runs, three of which came from Fairey’s deep shot to right center field.
Clemson tacked on another three runs thanks to RBI singles from Tyler Corbitt, Chad Fairey, and J.D. Brock.
Bryar Hawkins struck again for the Tigers in the eleventh inning, hitting Clemson’s fourth homer of the day, good for two runs. Dylan Brewer tacked on another run with a solo bomb to right center field along with Blake Wright’s 3 RBI double and Jonathan French’s RBI double to round out the scoring in the fourteenth.
The Blazers attempted to answer in the second with two runs, the tenth with four, and once again with a homer by Josh Sears in the twelfth, but Clemson ultimately came away with the exhibition victory with a final score of 20-8.
“I think we set the tone early… I think there in the first inning being able to get on the board in the fashion that we did set the tone for the whole day and all in all, just really swung the bats well,” Lee said. “I was really pleased to see that.”
Clemson plays its second and final scrimmage of the fall season against outside competition at Auburn on Saturday, Oct 23 with first pitch scheduled for noon.