It’s time to bring it on.
Clemson Softball held its annual preseason press conference on Friday night, with head coach John Rittman and his key players providing media availability. A key theme of the room’s questions was how the team plans to “reset” after graduating the inaugural softball class of 2020. The answer? “Bring it on.”
“New look, new team,” said coach John Rittman during his opening statement. “It’s almost like we’re starting over again, but we’re really excited about what we have.” Rittman went on to gush about his returning production, including the likes of All-American Maddie Moore, All-conference Alex Brown, and four-year starting catcher Aby Viera.
Rittman also took multiple opportunities to highlight second-year players Julia Knowler and Kylee Johnson. “We pride ourselves on a ‘coach-fed player-led’ program, and (returning players) have done a tremendous job with that.” He was also asked about the coaching philosophy with this group, after doing somewhat of a do-over with the 2025 team.
“(With a lot of new players and coaches) you kind of have to look at how you do things and things you took for granted (before, with the prior team)… So we’ve changed a few things to kind of help with the personnel.” Coach then talked about the new leaders of the staff (Katie “Crash” Repole and Ryan Wieligman) adding experience, new thoughts, and new ideas alongside long-standing associate head coach and pitching coach Kyle Jamieson.
While coach is not set on the rotation just yet, Rittman expressed excitement about all of the different pitcher possibilities in the circle. “You know, Valerie, Millie, and Regan have eaten up a lot of innings over the years,” Rittman smiled, “We’ve got our Orange and Purple scrimmage on Sunday at noon and the first time for our fans get out and watch us play… You’ll get a good look at all five pitchers.
“We had a core group of players that have come in and helped start this program, and now we’re cycling through to this next group… I really love our team, I love our leadership, and you know, as coaches we put a lot of trust in the way they work and the way they do things from the day to day standpoint, and I’m really, really excited about this season.”
Out of the ten brand new Tigers joining the softball program this year, three freshmen were singled out as immediate contributors on the field. While Macey Cintron will be a huge piece for the pitching situation, she will also see the field as a utility player. Sam Minish will potentially fill the, albeit enormous, shoes of McKenzie Clark in center field (though she usually plays catcher), while a big task will come with Marian Collins taking starting duties at shortstop – allowing Alex Brown to move to third base and get Maddie Moore back to the base she knows best: second. Maddie wouldn’t waste any time addressing this position change when the player portion of the press conference began.
“I love second base… I don’t have to think to play well (there)” said Moore, looking to embrace the leadership role alongside her other upperclassmen Viera and Brown. “We brought in ten new girls this year and all of them are amazing… all of them have weird personalities that match our great weird personalities… We finally get to step in and see what (the last group of leaders) had to go through… so like now I’m the mother of the team now so I get to show them what I went through and do that for them.”
Moore and this year’s Tigers leaders hope to leave a legacy of fun and friendship – starting and ending in 2025. “Just that I had fun” said Maddie on her own legacy. “The accolades are amazing but I’m honestly so happy and so grateful that I get to play with twenty-five-plus of my best friends.. My forever friends… That I was always out there with a smile, that I always found the silver lining in everything.”
“I’m super excited for this season,” added Alex Brown. “We have a new team motto, ‘Bring it On,’ so this season we’re just looking forward to playing some competition and going out there and having a bunch of fun. We put in a lot of work, we have a lot of new faces, and we’re just really excited.”
Bring it on, indeed.
