SOUTH BEND — A big final weekend in Pittsburgh set up Notre Dame baseball for an intriguing rematch with Clemson at the single-elimination ACC Baseball Championship.
The Irish (30-21) claimed the No. 10 seed after completing the regular season at 13-17 in the conference. They will face 15th-seeded Clemson (31-25, 10-20) in a first-round game at 5 p.m. on Tuesday May 19 at Truist Field in Charlotte, N.C.
The winner comes back on May 20 at 5 p.m. to face seventh-seeded Virginia Tech (29-23, 15-15). The Irish and Hokies didn’t meet during the regular season.
North Carolina, seeded second, awaits the winner of that second-round matchup in Friday’s quarterfinal at 3 p.m.
Coach Shawn Stiffler’s fourth Irish edition swept the Clemson Tigers in a three-game home series March 20-22 that moved Notre Dame to 6-3 in the league and briefly into the national rankings. What followed was a sustained downward spiral, mostly due to pitching woes, that saw the Irish drop 13 of their next 15 conference outings.
A home sweep of Stanford to open May helped stabilize matters, and the Irish bashed eight home runs in their final eight innings at Pitt to enter the league tournament with renewed hope.
Right-hander Jack Radel is Notre Dame’s top starter. Radel went 7-4 with a 3.22 ERA over a team-high 81 1/3 innings. He struck out 108 batters, a rate of 11.95 per nine innings.
Radel aside, the rest of the Irish pitching staff posted a 6.63 ERA with 53 homers allowed and 4.1 walks per nine innings.
Center fielder Drew Berkland, the Minnesota transfer, has slugged a team-high .638 out of the leadoff spot with 33 extra-base hits (15 homers). Catcher Mark Quatroni, a Cornell transfer, leads the Irish in batting average (.373) and RBI (64) and ranks second with 14 homers.
Sophomore Jayce Lee, the former South Bend St. Joe star, has 12 homers for an offense that has outscored opponents by 92 runs.
Clemson, meanwhile, dropped six of its final eight conference series since the Irish swept them out of South Bend by a combined 21-11 score.
Notre Dame hasn’t won an ACC Tournament game since beating Florida State and Virginia in 2022, when the Irish went on to reach the College World Series under former coach Link Jarrett.
The Irish have gone a combined 35-55 (.389) in league play over the past three regular seasons. They have dropped all three of their ACC tournament games under Stiffler, including a 5-4 loss in 10 innings to Boston College last season.
Mike Berardino covers Notre Dame football for the South Bend Tribune and NDInsider.com. Follow him on social media @MikeBerardino.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Notre Dame baseball set to face Clemson to open ACC tournament
Reporting by Mike Berardino, South Bend Tribune / South Bend Tribune
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