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Fresh off its first ACC tournament championship in program history, the Clemson softball team will host an NCAA tournament regional this weekend after earning the No. 11 overall seed for the 64-team tournament. The Tigers will play USC Upstate on Friday at 4:30 p.m. in their tournament opener. Clemson is the number 1 seed of their regional and Upstate is the No. 4 seed. The other teams in Clemson's regional are Northwestern and Kentucky, who will play Friday at 2 p.m. Northwestern is the 3 seed for the Clemson regional and Kentucky is the 2 seed. The winner of the Clemson regional will play the winner of the Austin regional, which includes Texas, a number 6 national seed, Michigan, UCF and Eastern Illinois.

A seventh-inning two-run blast off the bat of sophomore Kylee Johnson secured a 2-1 victory against Florida State for the Tigers' first ACC Championship title in program history on Saturday. The Tigers improved to 43-12 following the win, an impressive record given their early season struggles, in which they won just three of their first nine games.

Clemson head coach John Rittman has said many times this year that his team never quits. That was on display in Massachusetts this week as the Tigers pulled off an epic come-from-behind win over Virginia Tech in the conference tournament semifinals, overcoming a seven-run deficit late by scoring 8 runs in the 6th inning. Johnson's home run on Saturday also came late — in final inning of the game — to lift Clemson to a win.

"Just the resiliency this team shows," Rittman said. "It's a special group. Can't say enough good things about them. But from where they came to where they are now, it's taken a lot of adjustments, a lot of hard work. A never-say-die attitude and that's what champions have."

Rittman also noted how special it was to be part of history on Saturday. Clemson had not beaten Florida State in the previous 7 meetings between the two teams, but their win over the Seminoles gave them their first tournament championship in just their sixth season as a program. Florida State had also been 30-0 this season when leading entering the 7th inning, but the Tigers snapped that streak.

"Just to see them have success on the field and win a championship, it's a special feeling as a coach," Rittman said. "They work so hard. The camaraderie on this team is outstanding. They love each other and I love this team."