With the 2023 regular season coming to a close for the Clemson softball team, we need to take a look back and see the team behind the record (45-8) and look at what the Tiger’s postseason path might look like.
Clemson opened up their season in Miami, FL playing in the FIU tournament, winning all of their games by a combined score of 54-7. The following weekend Clemson would sweep all four of their games in the ACC-B1G challenge, two wins against #18 Northwestern and two wins against Ohio State. John Rittman’s club would string together 14 consecutive wins to open the season until running into #4 Tennessee and dropping their first game of the year by a score of 1-0. It wouldn’t take long for the Tigers to get back into their winning ways, taking the next 23 consecutive contests to move to 37-1.
Clemson’s biggest test of the season came in the form of #3 Florida State. The Seminoles came into McWhorter Stadium for a three-game set and completed the sweep of the Tigers, leaving the team and fans all stunned. Since then It looked like the team has lost a little bit of their confidence and swagger, especially at the plate. Going into the series with FSU all nine Tigers in the lineup were batting over .300 and no pitcher on the staff had an ERA over 1. At the end of the regular season, Clemson still has 6 of their everyday batters hitting over .300, led by Valerie Cagle hitting .468 and the pitchers all still have ERA’s under 2, led by Brooke McCubbin with a 1.12 ERA.
Clemson completes the regular season with an overall record of 45-8 and a conference record of 18-6. With all eyes now set on South Bend, IN for the ACC Softball tournament, Clemson is currently 4th overall in the ACC with a day one bye in the conference tournament. The Tigers would likely be playing in the 4-5 matchup on May 11th. Clemson will need to put together a run in the tournament to secure a regional hosting position and almost certainly need to win the ACC Championship to try to get a top 8 national seed and have the opportunity to host a Super Regional.
For most of this season there was never a doubt that this team would be hosting a regional and would be one of the front runners to collect one of the last national seeds. Over the last 3 weeks of the regular season Clemson dropped two games to Virginia Tech, one game to North Carolina State and a midweek game versus Liberty.
If everything holds the way it is then Clemson would open up the ACC tournament against Virginia Tech at 1:30 on May 11th. If the Tigers secure the win in game one, they would likely have a date with Florida State the following day (May 12th). Clemson would need to win that game to have any opportunity of becoming a top 8 seed in the NCAA Tournament. With a win against Virginia Tech and a very good showing against FSU I believe the consensus is that Clemson will have done enough to lock up a regional hosting spot.
Clemson will need to lean on superstars Valerie Cagle, and McKenzie Clark to keep the bats going to give the team the best shot to reach its end goal. We will find out exactly what this team is made of in the ACC Tournament.
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