Bakich says the stats show his team shouldn't have won 45 games

Jacob McGovern was a standout down the stretch for Clemson.

David Hood · Senior Writer · Sunday, June 01 2025

CLEMSON – Erik Bakich walked out of Clemson’s locker room to face the media following the Tigers’ disappointing ouster from their own regional not quite ready to talk about the future.

Clemson was on the wrong end of a 16-4 shellacking at the hands of Kentucky Sunday afternoon, allowing the Wildcats to move on to the championship game against West Virginia. For Clemson, it was the second time in three years losing out before reaching the championship game in their own regional.

Bakich, who just completed his third year at the helm of the program, said he knows how bad Sunday’s effort looked but wanted to take the time to appreciate the players who won’t be back next season.

“Today obviously sucked and I don't want to overly dwell on how poorly we played in the game today when, big picture, we have a group of seniors and a group of players that they deserve a better finish than this,” Bakich said. “And so that's really the most disappointing thing. More disappointing than seven errors and too many free passes and all the stuff. It's just you got guys like Dom Listi and Andrew Ciufo and Josh Paino and Lucas Mahlstedt and Reed Garris and all of our seniors that have just poured their hearts out for this team.

“To win 45 games and sweep South Carolina. And we did, even though we didn't come close to reaching our goals here in the month of June, there were some things that we will look back on and say there were some positives to take away from this season.”

Junior Cam Cannarella, who will be a high draft pick in next month’s Major League Draft, walked to the plate in the ninth with tears in his eyes as he realized his Clemson career was at an end.

“Very disappointed that Cam Cannarella doesn't get to play in Omaha,” Bakich said. “That's a guy that comes around once every blue moon, a special talent like that. You want to see him shining the brightest on the biggest stage. So, I hate that for him, but I'm just in a mood right now. Of course, we're going to move on and look at what needs to happen for Team 29 to not be in this position, but right now, in this moment right here, this press conference, it's going to be about appreciation for our seniors and for Team 128.

“When you look at our stats, it doesn't equal 45 wins. There's no way you look at our stat sheet and say that's a 45-win team. So, you really look at it and say, these guys emptied the tank and squeezed every drop of everything to have some of the success that we've had this year. And all that credit goes to guys like Dom Listi, who empties the tank every single day, as do the rest of them and play as hard as they can possibly play. So yeah, the way the game was today, obviously there's no good takeaways of today, but big picture this group collectively they did everything except we didn't finish where we wanted to.”