How did Clemson Tigers get to NCAA softball super regional? Meet Oklahoma Sooners' foe
NORMAN — For the second consecutive season, Clemson will head to Oklahoma for an NCAA softball super regional.
Last season, the 10th-seeded Tigers went to Stillwater, where they were swept by the seventh-seeded Cowgirls.
This season, the hill is steeper for Clemson, as the 16th-seeded Tigers will take on top-seeded OU beginning Friday at Marita Hynes Field.
Clemson (46-9) breezed through the first two days of the opener before falling to Auburn in Sunday’s first game, then bouncing back to beat the Tigers 5-1 in the winner-take-all second game to advance.
The first game of the super regional is set for 1 p.m. Friday, with Game 2 scheduled for noon Saturday. A decisive third game, if needed, would be played Sunday at a time to be determined.
Here are five things to know about the Clemson Tigers.
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Clemson is a young program
Clemson is one of college softball’s newcomers.
The addition of softball at the school was announced in March 2017 with the team beginning play in 2020.
It didn’t take long for the Tigers to leave their mark, though,
Just 19 days after their first game, Clemson knocked off then-No. 14 Georgia at home for the program’s first victory over a ranked opponent.
By early March of that season, the Tigers were receiving notes in the National Fastpitch Coaches Association poll.
The Tigers were 19-8 when the season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2021, Clemson went 44-8, including 29-5 in Atlantic Coast Conference play to take the regular-season conference title.
The Tigers made their first regional, traveling to Alabama, the No. 3 seed.
Clemson went 2-2 in the regional, beating Troy twice and losing twice to the Crimson Tide.
The Tigers broke through to host their first regional last season, and swept through the regional before falling 2-0 and 5-1 to Oklahoma State in the super regional.
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Clemson's OU ties
Clemson coach John Rittman, the only head coach in the program’s history, is married to former OU softball standout Lorie Fausett Rittman.
Fausett played for the Sooners from 1986-89, earning first-team All-Big Eight honors in each of her first two seasons and honorable mention in her third season.
She still sits in third place in program history with 418 career assists and her 27.4 at-bat-to-strikeout ratio in 1988 is ninth-best in program history.
Rittman’s wife isn’t the only OU connection for Clemson softball.
Tigers’ director of operations Jeannie Murphy is a Chandler native who played for the Sooners from 2006-09.
The former Jeannie Douglas spent 2009-10 as a graduate assistant on Patty Gasso’s staff.
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Top two-way player: Valerie Cagle
Clemson’s Valerie Cagle is undisputedly the top two-way player in the country.
The junior from Yorktown, Virginia, is hitting .467 with 19 home runs and 57 RBIs with an OPS of 1.466.
Her 152 total bases are the most in the nation.
She’s also the Tigers’ workhorse in the circle, going 25-6 with a 1.20 ERA in 186 innings pitched. No other Clemson pitcher has thrown more than 89 ⅔ innings.
Cagle has 186 strikeouts and has given up just six home runs.
In the regional, Cagle was 5 for 7 at the plate with four runs, four RBIs and one home run.
She went 2-1 in the circle, allowing just nine hits and three earned runs in 17 innings, going 2-1.
Cagle was recently named one of three finalists for USA Softball’s Collegiate Player of the Year award, joining UCLA’s Maya Brady and Florida’s Skylar Wallace.
Cagle, who throws right-handed and hits left-handed, struggled with biceps pain last season but has bounced back this season.
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Toughest pitching OU has faced
While Valerie Cagle is clearly the Tigers’ No. 1 pitcher, Clemson has several other stout weapons.
Brooke McCubbin has a 1.01 ERA in 69 innings pitched, Millie Thompson posted a 1.80 ERA in 89 ⅔ innings and Regan Spencer a 1.79 ERA in 31 ⅓ innings.
Overall, the Tigers have a sterling 1.36 team ERA — good for second-best nationally.
Of course, Clemson has to face the team with the best ERA in the country.
Heading into the super regional, OU has a 0.88 ERA.
Long streak for Clemson softball
The Tigers set a program record with 23 consecutive victories from Feb. 26 through April 5.
Clemson started off 37-1, with only a 1-0 loss to Tennessee on Feb. 25 keeping it from being undefeated heading into the early April series against Florida State.
Since, things haven’t been nearly as smooth for the Tigers, sending them falling from a likely top-eight national seed spot to No. 16 and a matchup with OU.
Clemson was swept by Florida State, starting a stretch where the Tigers went 9-8 entering regional play. The Tigers are just 8-8 against teams in the top 25 in RPI. OU is 21-1 in such games.
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OU vs. Clemson
Best-of-three series at Marita Hynes Field in Norman:
Game 1: 1 p.m. Friday, ESPN2
Game 2: Noon Saturday, TBD
Game 3: TBD Sunday (if nec.)
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This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OU softball vs Clemson: NCAA Super Regional preview for Sooners-Tigers
