Kind of a Big Deal: All-State pitcher, LSU signee gives gutsy performance to lead Quitman to repeat state title
by William Weathers // GeauxPreps.com Contributor
Defending Class B state softball champion Quitman was locked in a quarterfinal battle, holding a precarious one-run lead in the fourth inning over visiting Holden.
That’s when coach Justin Dodson heard a familiar voice in the dugout asking to enter the game.
The voice belonged to all-state pitcher and LSU signee Cali Deal, who hadn’t pitched in nearly three weeks because of thoracic outlet syndrome, imploring her coach to allow her to return to action.
Deal had only gotten the green light from her doctor to return to throwing the day before the playoff, hardly the kind of ramp-up needed to pitch in a competitive game that could determine the end of someone’s season.
“She comes to me and says she’s ready,” Dodson said. “I told her she hadn’t pitched in three weeks, what do you mean you’re ready? You’ve got to give it some time. She said no, that she was good. She said she was going to the circle and that I could put everybody else where they needed to go.”
Quitman’s fan base stood in unison at the sight of Deal heading to the circle for the first time since April 1, while the reception was somewhat subdued on the opposite side of the field.
“Holden’s fans were cheering and into it,” Dodson said. “When she walked out all of their fans sat down and went flat.”
Deal’s synergy was palpable for a team that had lost five of their last six games of the regular season. The Lady Wolverines had advanced in the regional round past Florien in decisive run-rule fashion when Holden had put up greater resistance until Deal entered play. She helped ignite a stretch of 11 unanswered runs for a 17-5 run-rule triumph and a date in the state semifinals.
“The whole time I pitched this year my hand was completely numb,” Deal said. “There was no feeling, it was swollen. They just let me finish it out because it couldn’t get any worse than it was. I was having surgery regardless.”
Top-seeded Quitman returned to the state tournament in Sulphur where Deal threw a complete-game shutout over fourth-seeded Grace Christian followed two days later by a 10-0 rule-run victory in another complete-game effort over second-seeded for a second straight state championship.
“The impact Cali has given to us, just for being out there, I can’t describe it,” said Dodson, who has coached at Quitman since 2018. “We hit better when she’s pitching because we know there’s not as much pressure. We field better. Just because she was in there, we felt like we were OK.”
The 6-foot Deal, a left-handed pitcher, said the genesis of her nagging injury was traced back to the start of the season. A five-year member of the school’s basketball team, Deal has played 32 minutes of a 47-39 quarterfinal loss to Anacoco in the state quarterfinals and as it’s been customary, quickly turned the page to softball season.
Deal pitched five innings in her first softball game the following day and recalled her arm being sore and tired thereafter.
“It had never felt like that,” she said. “I just thought it felt that way because my body hadn’t had enough time to rest. I did have a lot of free-throw air balls this year. … More than usual. I wondered why and that’s probably why when I couldn’t feel my arm sometimes.”
Quitman had a game the following day and Deal logged a complete game, pitching seven innings and feeling numbness in her arm again.
“I figured it would just go away,” she said. “Eventually I started to deal with it. It was kind of frustrating because something felt off the whole time. I wasn’t as good as I felt I could have been. When you can’t feel your hand it’s kind of hard to know where you’re throwing the ball. I threw well. I trusted it would get better, but it didn’t.”
Deal pitched for more than a month of the season before sitting out for nearly three weeks and finally getting a diagnosis following a doctor’s visit.
The explanation Deal received was that she had a pinched nerve because of a narrow space between her clavicle and rib cage, thus causing the numbness in her lethal left hand. Surgery was scheduled after the season on May 14 to remove her top rib in a procedure that was initially set for 1 ½ hours before turning into a 7-hour ordeal.
“I was born with an enclosed artery in a muscle, and they nipped the artery in surgery,” she said. “The doctor said that in 30 years of performing that surgery that had never happened. It was because of a defect that I was born with. The artery wasn’t supposed to be inside of a muscle, but mine was. It’s perfect now. “
Deal followed her team’s victory over Holden with a complete-game semifinal win (4-0) over Grace Christian with another superb effort in the state final. She allowed two hits in another shutout effort, striking out 12 and powering her team to an early lead with a three-run homer in the first inning against Stanley.
The Lady Wolverines also enjoyed a five-run sixth inning and junior Maggie Guyotte, a Louisiana Tech commitment, drove in the game-clinching run to left.
Deal (11-4, 1.25 ERA with 165 strikeouts in 100.2 innings) was named the Most Outstanding Player on the strength of her two complete-game victories and 22 strikeouts. She also batted .378 with 12 doubles, five homers, and 27 RBIs for the season.
“This was the first year to go through any type of pain or discomfort while I pitched,” Deal said. “Offensively, my grip felt a little weak. Once I got used to it, I felt I was able to push through that. It was a lot easier to deal with hitting than pitching.
“I was definitely not at my best,” Deal said of the state final. “I had a lot of adrenaline. People had said stuff online and the Stanley people were saying things, and I think that kind of lit a fire in me. I went out there and trusted the work I had previously done and my defense behind me.”
Deal has more than upheld the family’s legacy at Quitman High, a school 20 minutes south of Ruston where 154 residents live in rural Jackson Parish.
Robert Humble, a great-grandfather of Deal, pitched at Louisiana Tech and later served as principal, teacher, and coach at Quitman High. Her grandmother, Laura Culpepper, was part of only two teams in school history to reach the state tournament and finish as state basketball runner-up; the other was with her mother Syble Deal.
One of her great uncles, Lee Humble, won three state titles at Quitman in basketball before continuing to play at Louisiana Tech. She also had another great uncle and aunt who graduated from Quitman.
“Sports at Quitman’s kind of a legacy for my family,” Deal said. “It’s really a family thing for us and I’m proud to be part of that legacy.”
Deal’s first season varsity season at Quitman was the shortened 2020 COVID year where she was limited to a 5-1 record when the season was cancelled.
The scope of Quitman’s softball program increased with the rise of Deal to phenom, both in the circle and on the mound. She helped the Lady Wolverines to three straight trips to the state tournament, the first ending in a marathon 2-1 loss to Converse in nine innings.
Quitman won its first state championship a year later, defeating Stanley 8-1 in the final, with Deal enjoying a career-best season with a record of 20-3, 0.98 ERA and 218 strikeouts.
Deal enjoyed a sterling career with an 84-21 record, four saves, 1,061 strikeouts (single-game high was 18 twice), 174 walks, and a 1.74 ERA. She’s also thrown one perfect game with seven no-hitters – two of which were against Class 5A teams Ruston and West Monroe – with four one-hitters, 11 two-hitters with 21 shutouts.
Since the ninth grade, Deal’s batted .438 with 44 doubles, 27 homers and 144 RBIs. She was selected District 1-B MVP and Class B All-State from the eighth grade to her junior season – including the state’s Most Valuable Player – with this year’s honors still to be determined.
“No. 1,” Dodson said of Deal’s ranking on his list of players he’s coached. “I’ve told people that in a million years I couldn’t ever get another one like her. Not so much her talent but her personality and work ethic.”
Deal dreamed big when she was younger, telling anyone who would listen she would play both basketball and softball in college.
“I guess that was really high dreams I had,” she said with a laugh.
Once she reached the travel ball circuit, Deal continued playing basketball for Quitman but set her sights squarely on pitching at the collegiate level.
She remained a vital part of the Lady Wolverines’ basketball program, earning all-district honors each season since her freshman season, and has been the league’s MVP the past two seasons and honorable mention all-state.
Deal averaged 21 points and 7 rebounds last season, reaching a career-high 39 points during the season, and averaged 19 points and 8 rebounds for the state quarterfinalists Lady Wolverines (21-10) this season.
“I still worked hard at basketball to finish my high school career,” said Deal, voted the school’s Most Athletic Female athlete. “I’m thankful that I kept playing. I’m thankful for the memories I have playing basketball.”
Deal joined one of the nation’s top travel ball programs – Texas Bombers – as a 13-year-old and a year later, experienced difficulty trying to balance a fall schedule of travel ball and high school basketball.
A shaky outing resulted in a rare outward outburst from the even-keel pitcher.
“My (travel ball) coach told me she promised that I would be able to do what I wanted to do,” Deal said. “She said these college coaches are looking at you, they want you. You will be able to accomplish your dreams. You just have to trust in yourself to do that. Just knowing from then on that I didn’t have to be perfect, I could still achieve my dreams. That’s when I finally started to do big things at big levels.”
Deal started displaying her talents on bigger stages, under the scrutiny of college colleges, and showed she belonged against the increased level of competition. She wound up the fall of 2023 among the nation’s leaders in ERA at the 16U level.
In between, Deal was the winning pitcher in a best-of-three championship 14U series for the Texas Bombers in a tournament played at Cal State Fullerton. She also got the ball in the final game to win a national championship at the prestigious Patriot Games Tournament in Denver, and last summer the Bombers (44-5-2) were third in the National Alliance 16U event in Indianapolis, Ind.
“I’m not a very overpowering pitcher at all,” Deal said. “I pride myself in off-speed pitches that I can spin and locate the ball.”
Dodson said that the understated Deal throws with plenty of velocity and her fastball has consistently been clocked at 65-67 miles-per-hour. He expects, with additional weight and strength gain next season at LSU, she’ll throw closer to 68-70 which would elevate her to among the league’s hardest throwers.
“In five years, I may have called her fastball 20 times because that’s not her (modus operandi) ‘M.O’.,” Dodson said. “Yes, she throws hard, but she can throw her curveball on either side of the plate. She has an off-speed curveball that moves as well and a rise(ball). She’s always worked to try and make her spins perfect.
“She has movement on the ball,” Dodson said. “Anybody that’s worth anything in softball will tell you they’d rather face a 70 miles-an-hour fastball than a 52 miles-an-hour curveball. You can time up speed, but it’s hard to figure out spin.”
Sacrifices were in order for Deal to reach her objective of a college scholarship and signing with LSU. While friends either went to Ruston or Jonesboro for entertainment, she loaded into a vehicle for trips to either College Station or Houston in Texas to practice with the Bombers and head into tournament play.
Weekends were spent in the heat of competition with the payoff still far in the distance.
“It was definitely hard at times,” Deal said. “I had a dream since I was little. It didn’t stop me or get in the way because I knew I needed to do that in order to reach my dreams.”
LSU coach Beth Torina called to offer Deal a scholarship last Sept. 1, 2023 – the first day colleges could extend overtures to prospective junior student-athletes. The next day, she made the drive of more than 200 miles to Baton Rouge for an unofficial visit and committed in person.
“She talked to me about them wanting me to be a Tiger,” Deal recalled of her phone conversation with Torina. “I told her I wanted to be Tiger, too. I’m ready. I told her the next day that I was ready to do it.
Torina welcomed Deal to her seven-member signing class last December where LSU was ranked No. 1 nationally by several different media outlets.
“Some of it still doesn’t feel real,” Deal said. “I’m living a dream that I get to do it. The people there are incredible and make you feel you’re not just an athlete. They love you as much as you love them. Growing up in Louisiana it’s a big sports culture. For as long as I can remember I wanted to play softball at LSU. There was nowhere else I wanted to go because I’ve been a Louisiana girl.”
Dodson believes some of Deal’s intangibles are just as prevalent in her success as her pitching repertoire.
“I tell people all the time you can’t coach Cali’s mentality,” he said. “She never got rattled. Her mentality is perfect for college softball.”
Deal’s final season was unconventional to say the least, getting a chance to pitch against some of the state’s top programs where Quitman faced its usual gauntlet of a schedule to prepare for the postseason.
“When you’re at a small school everybody knows you, knows who you are and what you do, you constantly have a target on your back,” Deal said. “You get everybody’s best. They want to beat you just because of who you are. Pitching against that is almost as hard as going against the best hitters in the country just because they want it so bad.”
When the irregularity in her arm and hand made it impossible to pitch at full strength, Deal remained present in the team’s dugout. She sat next to Dodson discussed each pitch thrown and showered her teammates with encouragement.
With her final season whittling away, Deal remained committed to returning for her teammates and her tight-knit school.
“At that point, I wanted to come back, and it wasn’t for me,” Deal said. “Just to be able to go out there and do it. It’s probably one of the hardest things I’ve had to go through I’ve been a part of the Quitman softball program for seven years, starting since the seventh grade. Being at a small school like Quitman, it’s more like a family than anything. Everybody knows you personally. It just means a lot more.”
Less than two weeks later Deal, one of the school’s valedictorians with a 4.5 GPA, used her malady to inspire her valedictorian address during Tuesday’s graduation ceremony to celebrate the 40-member senior class.
“I said that our plan is not always the same as God’s plan,” Deal said, “but I know he’ll probably use what I went through, and what I’ll continue to go through, for probably while to bring something good out of it. He’ll make a light out of it, and it will end up better for me.”