Tennessee baseball is headed across the mountains to play in the Clemson Regional in the opening weekend of the NCAA Tournament.
Clemson earned the No. 4 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament and is one of the nation’s hottest teams entering the tournament. After winning the ACC Tournament Sunday, Clemson is winners of 16 straight and 26 of its last 29 games.
Three-seed Charlotte and four-seed Lipscomb round out the Clemson Regional. The two-seed Vols will face Charlotte in the opening game of the event.
The host Tigers struggled to start the season dropping series against UCF and South Carolina in non conference play before falling to Duke, Georgia Tech and Wake Forest in their first three ACC series. But from there Clemson completely flipped its season winning its final seven conference series and sweeping through the ACC Tournament.
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Before Tennessee could face Clemson in the double elimination tournament they’ll face Charlotte— the winners of the Conference USA Tournament. While the 49ers won the conference tournament, they finished tied for fifth in the regular season with a 17-13 conference record.
Charlotte played eight games against power five opponents this season earning a 2-6 record. The 49ers won both midweek games against South Carolina, dropped a pair of midweek games against North Carolina, fell to Clemson in one meeting and dropped all three games in a weekend series against Virginia Tech.
While it wasn’t a power five opponent, Charlotte did win a midweek game against regional host Coastal Carolina.
If Tennessee makes it out of the opening weekend they will face the winner of the Auburn Regional in the best of three series in the super regional round.
Tennessee opens play at the Clemson Regional on Friday. First pitch between the Vols at 49ers is at approximately 6 p.m. ET Friday night.
