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Clemson Baseball

Hennessy, No. 11 Clemson dominate No. 10 Dallas Baptist in game one

February 23, 2018
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CLEMSON -- Last Friday night, Jacob Hennessy was baptized by fire in his first game in Clemson’s starting rotation. Tonight in only his second career start, Hennessy made fools of Dallas Baptist batters while proving he deserves to be a Friday starter.

Backed behind Hennessy’s outing and 18 hits, No. 11 Clemson pounded the Patriots into the ground to take game one of an important weekend series 12-1.

“I thought our guys couldn’t have played a better baseball game than we did,” head coach Monte Lee said after Clemson’s fifth victory to start the season.

The sophomore left-handed pitcher spent his freshman year as one of the top arms coming out of the bullpen for Clemson, but a newly developed changeup in the offseason gave him all the tools he needed to be a weekend starter.

“I thought our guys couldn’t have played a better baseball game than we did."
- Monte Lee

Hennessy was locked in from the beginning, putting up zero after zero on the scoreboard as the game progressed.

He threw a career-high eight strikeouts, seven of them swinging, on 99 pitches in 6 ⅓ innings and only gave up three hits. His outing against a very good No.10 Dallas Baptist program showed Clemson fans he has one of Clemson’s best arms and is capable of having more performances like this in the future.

“He was dominant tonight,” Lee said of Hennessy’s performance. “You earn the right to pitch on Friday night. We felt like Hennessy was our best pitcher this whole year. He was the most consistent pitcher on our pitching staff. He throws three pitches for strikes, he’s a competitor and hard-worker. We didn’t just give him the ball in game one, he’s earned the right to be our Friday-night starter.”

Lee confirmed Hennessy will get the start in game one of next weekend’s series against in-state rival South Carolina after the punishment he inflicted on the Patriots tonight.

While the Tigers pitched exceptionally well, they swung the bats with the momentum they carried from their Tuesday win over Furman.

The Tigers put together 18 hits and scored in six of their eight offensive innings. It all started with Chris Williams and Patrick Cromwell.

Williams went 4-for-4, driving in four runs on two doubles, a single, and a home run that was smashed into the grandstands in the fifth inning. Cromwell batting right before him proved to be the perfect move for Lee as Cromwell went 2-for-3 and scored four times as well.

The first baseman has had an impressive last couple of game for Clemson and said he is seeing the ball well right now. After Clemson’s bats struggled in the opening series, Williams has led the charge since. In the last two games, Williams is 6-for-8 with 10 RBIs.

That’s scary good on a Clemson offense that can overpower opposing pitching staffs at any time.

“I think (Williams) is going to hit for a long, long time in the game,” Lee said. “He’s the kind of guy in a couple of years, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if he is playing on TV because I think he can really hit. He can hit for power, against velocity, against righties and lefties. He can do it all. Chris is a special bat and he’s on fire right now.”

Robert Jolly, Drew Wharton, and Grayson Byrd added more firepower to Clemson’s offense, combining for eight hits and five RBIs between them.

"We knew their pitchers were going to be good. We wanted to get on him quick - that was one of our main points of the day: we wanted to get on them early and often. That’s exactly what we did today.”
- Chris Williams

The only problem on Monte Lee’s mind is Clemson should have saved some of its runs scored tonight for the rest of the weekend.

“The perfect thing about today was no one cowered away from (Dallas Baptist),” Williams said. “Everyone came in and was very aggressive. We knew their pitchers were going to be good. We wanted to get on him quick - that was one of our main points of the day: we wanted to get on them early and often. That’s exactly what we did today.”

The Tigers will play games two and three Saturday against Dallas Baptist in a double-header for the series. The first pitch will be thrown at 1:00 PM.

 
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