Rittman, Tigers ready to enjoy last ride with 'generational talent' Valerie Cagle

Valerie Cagle looks to maximize her final year with the Tigers.

by Ariana Pensy - Correspondent - Mon Feb 05 13:30:08 GMT-04:00 2024

CLEMSON - Reigning USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year Valerie Cagle is about to start her final season as a Clemson Tiger. Coming off her historic 2023 season, head coach John Rittman emphasized the need to take in that honor while also restarting and preparing for this final season.

“She’s a little bit of a different cat, and certainly to be honored with the National Player of the Year is something special, and I’m certain she has some expectations going in this year, and how she copes with that is a work in progress. But she’s just such a consistent player whether it’s pitching, hitting, hitting for power, fielding, playing first base, there’s no question that she’s a generational type talent, and as a coach and as her teammates, it’s really fun to watch her play everyday,” Rittman said. “But, I think the biggest thing Valerie has to do is really understand that last year is over and this is a whole new year and everybody starts 0-0 and just go out and enjoy her last year of playing college softball and compete to the best of her ability and that’s all that we can ask of her and I think that’s all she can ask of herself.”

For someone with as many accolades as Cagle, it is hard to imagine what she needs to improve on. In addition to the USA Softball national player of the year honor, she was the ACC Player of the Year for the second consecutive year, the D1 Softball Player of the Year – and she also received the Rawlings Gold Glove award. Still, there are only things to perfect and improve offensively and defensively.

“I think there’s certainly some areas (of improvement). Defensively, she’s just such a talent and it’s hard kind of going between pitching and first base. I think she can improve a little bit there. Obviously, offensively, she put up great numbers last year. But, you’re always going to strive to get better and maybe not be so hard on herself when she doesn’t have success and be able to release some of her failures and refocus and reload real quick,” Rittman said. “Other than that, she’s just such a terrific talent. She’s such a hard worker that she’s going to just get better by the fact that she’s in (her) fifth year, she’s more mature, she’s been through almost every situation you can be in except getting over that last hump into the World Series.”

Cagle has been the top pitcher for Clemson ever since their first season, particularly during their first full season in 2021. That year, she had a career-low in earned run average (ERA) with 1.16 and started a career-high of 32 games. After having such a historic run at Clemson, and with the success of the program overall, it would be quite fitting to finish her career as a Clemson Tiger hoisting the Women's College World Series trophy. That is something all Clemson fans would love to see, including Rittman.

“As a coach, you sometimes become a fan. Today (Sunday at the Orange-Purple scrimmage), her last at bat, game tied, purple and orange scrimmage but still, it’s a tie game, she comes up and hits the go-ahead home run. So, I’ve seen that plenty of times in her career. So, nothing ever surprises me,” Rittman said. “But, there’s a lot of times where I become a fan and actually just enjoy watching her play and compete. That will never get old. I’m so happy that she’s a Clemson Tiger, and obviously, she’ll be in the record books forever. But, we’re going to enjoy watching her play one more year and hopefully we can all reach our final goal and get to that World Series and win a championship.”