Hosting a regional a ‘dream’ come true for Clemson softball

If it’s validation Clemson’s softball team was looking for, the Tigers have it.

Clemson has received 83 game titles in excess of the very last two seasons, which have included an ACC frequent-season title a yr in the past and again-to-back trips to the meeting event title game. Following getting handed up to host a regional previous year, the Tigers’ position as a person of the top packages heading nationally suitable now was cemented Sunday when Clemson bought the nod to host.

The Tigers, the 10th overall seed in this year’s NCAA Tournament, will get started what they hope is the road to the Women’s College Earth Sequence on Friday when they host UNC Wilmington in the initial-at any time Clemson Regional.

“I feel when we obtained previous Tuscaloosa’s regional, we enable out a sigh of relief,” shortstop Alia Logoleo said, referencing the regional Clemson was despatched to final period as a No. 2 seed. “We had been so blown away to see our name pop up (during Sunday’s assortment display), especially with the quantity that was in front of it.”

Not undesirable for a system that was actually filth and rubble this time three years back. Which is when Clemson’s 1st and only mentor to this stage, John Rittman, was getting recruits about campus in hardhats, demonstrating them the web page at which McWhorter Stadium and other team facilities would be constructed.

Looking at how the Tigers did not engage in their initial-ever softball match right until the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, Rittman was merely marketing possible at the time.

“Certainly our intention was to shock the environment when we started this program,” Rittman said. “We experienced a aspiration and we experienced a vision. We’ve labored incredibly really hard to get to where we are at. There is been a good deal of exertion put into this system not only from gamers and coaches but the administration, the president and the athletic director.”

Most of all, Rittman claimed it is a testomony to the players that have determined to acquire in for the past a few a long time that the system is very well forward of agenda. Clemson received 19 of the initially 27 game titles it performed before the 2020 season was at some point canceled in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The Tigers went 44-8 and won the ACC frequent-period crown in 2021 and are now just a single acquire away from earning it back again-to-back again 40-earn seasons.

“If you dream it, in some cases it comes real,” Rittman claimed. “And that was our desire from the start, to be aggressive appropriate absent. Definitely had no strategy results would arrive this speedy.”

The program’s upward trajectory has rapidly-tracked to the first regional it is ever hosted in just its second entire period. Postseason softball has quickly arrived in Clemson, and Rittman explained he’s eager to demonstrate followers who may perhaps not be common with the program’s development what all the fuss is about.

“It’s actually an fascinating time for our program,” Rittman explained. “We’re three years in our existence, and to have an opportunity to host a regional, I’m just so proud of our group, our coaching staff, our help team. It is a enormous honor to host a regional and to be one particular of the very best 16 groups in the region. And to be ready to showcase our great facility, our terrific enthusiasts and just what we’ve designed listed here.”

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