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Rex Brown

Clemson's Matt Sanders throws out a South Carolina runner at first base during the Tigers' loss on Wednesday at Doug Kingsmore Stadium in Clemson.

CLEMSON — It’s guaranteed that one streak is going to end tonight when Clemson visits Duke for an important ACC baseball series.

The Tigers hope to end their school-record 11-game losing streak, while Duke on the other hand would like nothing more than inflict more pain to Clemson’s confidence by extending it, while also ending a 10-game slide against the Tigers.

“There is no question about it. This is a big series for us,” Clemson coach Jack Leggett said. “We have to go up there and we have to play.”

Clemson (18-19, 6-12) better play or it might be watching everyone else play in the ACC Tournament next month in Jacksonville, Fla. Despite the losing streak, the Tigers still control their own destiny when it comes to making the conference tournament.

They enter tonight’s 7 p.m. game in eighth place and a half-game in front of ninth-place Duke in the ACC standings. The ACC Tournament only takes the top eight teams in the conference, regardless of where they finish in their respective divisions.

“We still have a chance and we still have opportunities,” Leggett said. “We still have 18 or 19 games, or whatever it is, left. We still have something to hang our hat on. We are not dead yet, but we just have to find something offensively and piece something together.”

The Tigers haven’t been able to piece anything together since a March 30 win at Maryland.

During this current losing streak, Clemson is batting just .190, while scoring just 34 runs. In the last six games alone, the Tigers have managed to score only 12 runs.

“We’ve already proven this year that we can swing the bats, I don’t know, but right now it’s like we have a curse or something, I don’t know,” centerfielder Wilson Boyd said. “We’re going to do everything we can to get ride of that curse.”

That will not be easy against a Duke team (26-12, 5-12) that’s full of confidence following three mid-week games in which they scored 46 runs. Granted North Carolina Central and Campbell cannot be compared to the likes of No. 14 South Carolina, or even Western Carolina for that matter, but regardless Duke is playing with a lot of confidence, while the Tigers are not.

“This weekend is pretty much like our World Series,” Boyd said. “We have to go out there and play like there is no tomorrow and just be tough and play with reckless abandon.”

But Leggett just wants to see his team take baby steps right now, and put a string of hits together, that’s the first goal. Do that and everything else will take care of itself.

“We are having trouble against good pitching. Against mediocre pitching, we hit the ball okay or we have in the past, but right now when we have seen good pitching in this last 11-game stretch, we have not done much with it,” Leggett said.

Clemson only knows of one pitcher it will see right now, and he is a good one. The Blue Devils will start right-hander Andrew Wolcott on the mound. He is 3-2 and has a 2.91 ERA.

Though Duke has not announced the rest of its weekend rotation, it has a 3.51 ERA as a whole – a number that doesn’t bode too well for a struggling Clemson team.

“Some days you have it and some days you don’t,” Boyd said. “It has been very unfortunate that here the last couple of weeks we have not had it.”

All the Tigers have right now are themselves, and they’re the only ones that can push themselves through what has been a nightmarish April for the baseball program.

“This is uncharacteristic of Clemson baseball,” Boyd said. “We all know this is tough, but its something in which we have to show how tough we are. We just have to keep coming out here and keep fighting and not giving up. That’s the main thing.”