Softball Player of the Year: James Wood's Cadence Rieg

Cadence Rieg can do just about anything on a softball field.

And maybe it’s no accident that James Wood, a longtime area power, made program history in Rieg’s final two seasons. As good as the Colonels had been over the years, they just couldn’t get over that hump and into the Class 4 state tournament.

That changed in 2023 and they followed it up with another Class 4 quarterfinal berth again this spring. The multi-talented Rieg turned in a performance that earned her First Team All-State and Class 4 Northwestern District Co-Player of the Year honors and now The Winchester Star’s Softball Player of the Year award.

Rieg was outstanding in all phases of the game. On a team that had four solid arms, she became the lead pitcher and went 7-1 with a 1.85 ERA. As a leadoff hitter with speed and power, she batted .444, led the area by scoring 35 runs, was second with six homers and drove in 18 runs. When she wasn’t in the circle, she played a stellar center field.

“She’s an absolute player,” Colonels coach Patrick Gibson said. “She’s a five-tool player, a captain, a leader. She brought the energy every single day and went about her business in a professional manner. She was just a joy to have around. She is just that player that you can build a team around and obviously she led us to states two years in a row. She’s the ultimate player in my eyes.”

Rieg, who started playing T-ball at age 4, says her success has come with hard work and she takes pride in how she has improved since first seeing varsity action as a freshman.

“I was able to be consistent,” she said. “That speaks a lot about a player when it isn’t like a fluke and is a consistency. I was happy that I was able to stay consistent and improve every year.”

Rieg is the first to admit that her freshman season was a roller-coaster ride. She didn’t perform as well as she wanted to at the plate and her stints in the circle were an adventure.

“I look at my freshman year and the consistency was not there at all,” she said. “I struck out a lot. I pitched fine, but when I pitched I was wild. Nobody knew where I was going to throw the ball. I didn’t know where I was going to throw the ball. I just hoped that it was somewhere in the zone.”

Gibson, then an assistant coach for the Colonels, said that Rieg wouldn’t settle for that kind of season. As the team’s hitting coach, he and Rieg ironed some things out.

“We spent a lot of time hitting,” Gibson said. “Her freshmen year, she hit for power but her average wasn’t so great. We knew she was an elite pitcher and outfielder. She talked to me and she wanted to hit for a better average and I agreed, so we really went to work on her swing.”

Rieg would raise her batting average to .384 as a sophomore and hit a career-best .536 as a junior.

“I remember telling her that if she hit for a better average to go along with her power and her pitching, that she could potentially be a Player of the Year candidate — district, region and Winchester Star Player of the Year,” Gibson said.

“I have worked harder throughout the years,” Rieg said. “Every single season, I’ve put in a little more work and it’s made me better.”

That especially is the case in the circle this season.

Rieg was more the No. 2 pitcher on staff in 2023, but emerged as the player that the Colonels wanted to start in the circle down the stretch this season. In most games, she would go the first four or five innings then move to center field as freshman Sophia Gerald came on to close out the game.

The strategy worked pretty well for the Colonels. Rieg’s only loss came in the state quarterfinals against Class 4 champion Woodgrove. The unbeaten Wolverines had mercy-ruled their previous six opponents, but Rieg held them to two runs through four innings. Woodgrove would eventually win 7-1.

“This was my best year,” Rieg said. “The whole offseason I worked on my pitching. I wanted to be more consistent and throw the ball where the coaches tell me to. I think this year was the best year I was able to do that. That’s a reason why I able to have the starting spot for pitching because I was able to show the coaches that I was consistent and that I can command the ball to do what they tell me to do.”

“We were confident they all could get it done,” Gibson said of the Colonels’ pitching staff. “Cadence just established her curveball a couple weeks into the season and it was really nasty. Just watching her bullpen work, it was really clean and crisp. We just felt like she was the better option.”

Gibson said that Rieg’s team-first attitude also was a big part of making the strategy work. No starting pitcher wants to come out when she is hanging up zeroes on the scoreboard.

“She knew our defense was better with her in center field,” Gibson said. “She never once questioned it. She just wanted to win. In the beginning I could tell she wanted to pitch more games, but like I said she knew that we were better with her in center field.

“That’s why we did that at the end of the game because we were deep pitching-wise. That’s why we made a lot of changes after four or five innings. We knew we had another quality pitcher coming in and that our defense was going to get better late in the game.”

Rieg said the most difficult part of being a starter came on the road. Since she was the Colonels’ leadoff hitter and getting on-base at a .541 percentage, she’d often have to run the bases before her first inning in the circle. As her runs scored total suggests, she’d often make the full trip around the bases.

Still, she loves making an impact early and certainly the Colonels (19-5) benefited.

“I really like it,” Rieg said of the leadoff spot in the order. “It helps me set a tone for the game. If you come out and hit a double, it automatically can set a tone for a game. I think you have better games when you have a leadoff that can do that.”

And Rieg could do more than just hit doubles. The opposition had to pitch carefully to her because she could clear the fence.

Rieg swears that hitting home runs has never been a priority for her.

“I always focus on live drives,” she explained. “I had a coach who would say, ‘Home runs are mistakes.’ They are really just pop-ups that keep going. I always look for line drives. Most of the home runs I have, especially at James Wood because the field is so short that I can hit line drives over. I always just try to put the ball over people’s heads.

“There are situations where you don’t need a home run. All you need is a little base hit to score a run.”

Gibson said that Rieg’s bat speed approaches Division I college levels. “She generates a ton of bat speed and uses the ground well,” he said of Rieg’s power. “When we work on swing mechanics, she wants all of the information. She’s a perfectionist. Every day at practice she’s like, ‘What am I doing? This doesn’t feel right.’ We’re constantly maintaining her swing and that’s what I love about her is that she wants the information and wants to be great.”

Gibson said that kind of attitude rubs off on others. And with several young new starters this season, leadership was important for the Colonels. Gibson said Rieg spent a lot of time with freshman Kati Brannon, who broke the school record with nine homers this season.

“It starts in the offseason and she never misses an offseason workout,” Gibson said of Rieg. “She’s always there and always leading it. With Kati Brannon this year, she took her under her wing and started hanging out with her when she could have been like, ‘Aw, this is my competition.’ She could have wanted nothing to do with her and shunned her, but she did the compete opposite.”

Rieg said being a leader wasn’t a one-way street.

“I really like being a leader because I think it helped me become better as well because I knew that people were looking at me and up to me,” she said. “… I always had a little bit of weak mind-set when I was a freshman. I’d get mad when I did that. The last two years especially, I’ve had to know that it’s not OK that I do that and I can’t let other players think that either when they look up to me.”

Rieg knows that this softball season won’t be her last. She will play at Shenandoah for coach Courtney Allen.

While she knew that she wanted to play for the Hornets, Rieg calls her commitment an “impulse” decision.

“I had a school club meeting and I thought about it,” she said. “After that meeting, I called the coach and said I wanted to play for her. I didn’t even tell my parents I was committing there. I told them afterwards.”

Rieg figures she’ll initially play in the outfield for SU, but still wants to work on her pitching so that she can be an option in the circle. “You’re not guaranteed a starting spot,” she said. “You have to get what you get and work hard for everything. Showing I can do both will help me get a spot.”

Regardless, Rieg vows not to put too much pressure on herself.

“Have fun most importantly,” she said when asked what she wants to accomplish. “Just going in and doing my best every single day would be my only goal. If I don’t come in having a great season, I know the player that I am and as long as I’m trying that’s my main goal.”

Rieg, who loves the outdoors and hiking, is proud of what she was able to accomplish at James Wood and looks up to arguably the Colonels’ best player, who made back-to-back College World Series at Oklahoma State.

“I’ve always wanted to leave my mark,” she said. “I came in after Ivy Rosenberry and she obviously left her mark. I wanted to do that like she did.”

— Contact Walt Moody at
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