CLEMSON, S.C. – Clemson pitcher/utility Valerie Cagle has been selected as the Louisville Slugger/NFCA National Player of the Week and the ACC Co-Player of the Week, both organizations announced Tuesday. This is Cagle’s first National Player of the Week honor this season, third of her tenure, and fourth weekly ACC honor of 2023, 10th of her career.
The Yorktown, Va., native led the No. 5/5 Tigers to a 3-0 weekend sweep in Atlanta, Ga., against Georgia Tech. She finished the weekend batting .571 with a 1.857 slugging percentage and .727 on-base percentage. The redshirt junior finished with three home runs, one in each game, and five RBIs with four runs scored. She also was walked three times and hit by a pitch. Defensively, she tallied 10 putouts with three assists for a perfect 1.000 fielding percentage.
In the circle, Cagle picked up two victories after posting a 0.78 ERA through nine innings of work. She struck out 13 batters, including nine en route to earning the run-rule victory on Friday evening. Also, during Friday night’s game, Cagle threw an immaculate inning needing only nine pitches to strike out three batters in the bottom of the second inning. She posted one solo shutout while only allowing three hits to limit opponents to a .100 average at the plate.
Cagle continues to show why she is the best two-way player in the country, sitting atop of the ACC in 10 categories including: batting average (.485), doubles (11), ERA (0.51), hits (47), home runs (11), on-base percentage (.561), shutouts (5), slugging percentage (.959), total bases (93) and victories (15). In each of those categories, she also ranks in the top 14 in the NCAA. She was recognized as the top pitcher and first baseman by D1Softball through seven weeks of the regular season. To keep the weekly honors rolling, Cagle was also named D1Softball’s Player of the Week.
Cagle shares the weekly ACC honor with Louisville’s Korbe Otis, while FSU’s Katheryn Sandercock was named Pitcher of the Week.
