Clemson softball will go about its routine similarly this weekend.
By this point, everyone knows that this won’t just be any ordinary series at McWhorter Stadium this weekend.
The Tigers, the 10th overall seed in this year’s NCAA Tournament, will start what they hope is the road to the Women’s College World Series on Friday when they host UNC Wilmington in the first-ever Clemson Regional.
“Obviously, we’re super excited to be hosting our first-ever NCAA regional,” Clemson coach John Rittman told reporters Thursday. “Our team has worked extremely hard for this opportunity. Our coaches, our staff, we just want to put on a great show for our fans…This is a great opportunity for us as a young program to showcase not only our team but our facility, the fans and our great community here at Clemson.”
Rittman has been preparing his team for this moment, in hopes that it would help give his team a sense of the rigors that a tough postseason provides.
The Tigers ran the gauntlet of the ACC during the regular season, as well as the conference tournament, but they also had a harder strength of schedule this season by design.
“It’s nothing new,” two-way player Valerie Cagle said. “Yeah, we’re gonna see good hitters and these teams are good, but it’s something that we’ve been preparing for all year. Last year, we were close to hosting and we went to that regional, but the main reason we weren’t able to host is because we didn’t have a hard enough schedule and we didn’t have those top wins. Really just focusing on doing that this year, so that we could use the talent we have and build off of that to have the opportunity that we have now.”
“We knew that this year was going to be way harder,” redshirt sophomore infielder Alia Logoleo said, “but it was just going to prepare us for this moment. Rittman said all year long that they can’t dock us on the teams we’ve played like they did last year. And we’re ready and we’re coming out with fire.”
Clemson now knows after last year — no matter who its opponent is — the Tigers have to bring their A-game.
What a difference a year makes.
“It feels amazing,” Logoleo said. “One, just being able to give our seniors another day here to play in front of the fans and we got a lot of experience last year playing at Alabama — their fans are insane, they go crazy every play. But now, we’re cheering for us and we’re super excited to have our fans behind us.”
“I think the obvious difference is we have a year of experience,” Rittman said. “Last year, our entire roster, it was their first time competing in the postseason. Now that we’ve been to two ACC tournaments, we were in the Tuscaloosa Regional last year, obviously. We have a sense of what it’s gonna be like and the competition level and just the oddities of the NCAA tournament.
“I think the biggest thing is this time of year, we’ve earned the right to be here. We earned the right to be the No. 1 seed and now it’s about staying focused on what we can control, which is the game and making sure we’re limiting the distractions.”
As of Thursday afternoon, Rittman hadn’t yet decided who would be starting for Clemson in the circle for Friday’s regional against UNC Wilmington. Rittman views the first game against the Seahawks as Clemson’s most important game and said that the Tigers would make the rest of their pitching decisions from there.
“Pitching depth is huge,” Rittman said. “Anytime that you can utilize a staff, especially with some of the powerful offenses that we have here. All the teams hit the ball pretty well and if you look at the home runs and the batting averages, it’s gonna be some fierce competition.”
Clemson will rely on the likes of Cagle (15-8) and Millie Thomspon (13-3), as well as Regan Spencer (6-2) and Brooke McCubbin (5-2) this weekend. You’d be hard-pressed to find a better pitching duo than Cagle and Howard, who are polar opposites personality-wise but are both masters of their craft in the circle.
In 30 appearances (24 starts), Cagle struck out 166 batters in 146.2 innings pitched with a 2.05 ERA, while Howard struck out 99 batters in 103.1 innings pitched and maintained an impressive 1.69 ERA.
“Millie, she’s been such a valuable asset to our program this year,” Rittman said. “We feel like we have two No. 1s in Valerie and Millie. Both two different types of pitchers compliment each other very well. It’s a nice luxury to have. We got to look at the matchups a little bit more.”
Rittman and his staff will make that consequential decision Thursday afternoon.
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