LSU pitcher Sydney Berzon continued her trend of minimizing the effect of her teams’ offensive issues Friday.
Berzon locked up Liberty with her second consecutive shutout, third of the season and sixth of her career in a 4-0 victory against the Flames at Tiger Park.
LSU’s offense was held hitless in the first four innings but broke through with two runs each in the fifth and sixth, enough to clinch back-to-back victories for the first time in a month.
Berzon was on top of her game all night, allowing five hits with no walks and six strikeouts. She retired 12 of the final 14 batters she faced while throwing 96 pitches.
“I felt pretty good tonight,” said Berzon, a sophomore All-American. “I felt my stuff was working; it felt pretty smooth. I had the defense and offense behind me tonight. It came together great.
“It’s always been a mindset of mine. My dad always told me, ‘Finish stronger than you start.’ That’s been a big thing I’ve been pushing for — especially learning from last year, being as strong as I can going into the postseason.”
Berzon, who shut out Arkansas 1-0 on Sunday, had her toughest inning in the third when Liberty (31-21) put two runners on and Sierra Kersten hit a drive to deep center. Ciara Briggs made the catch easily near the warning track.
“She did a great job,” LSU coach Beth Torina said. “She was trying to make a change in her walks and throwing through the (strike) zone. She did a good job, no walks tonight. She wanted to be better there.”
LSU (37-13) came up with four runs for only the second time in seven games. The Tigers had six base runners — four walks and two hit batters — but no hits through the first four innings against Liberty starter Elena Escobar (10-4). That changed quickly in the fifth.
Pinch hitter Sierra Daniel lined a single off shortstop Raigan Barrett’s glove to lead off and was sacrificed to second by Briggs. McKenzie Redoutey then hit a smash for a single that knocked off Escobar’s glove and sent Daniel to third. Newland lifted a sacrifice fly to left field and Daniel just eluded the tag at home plate to break the scoreless tie. Raeleen Gutierrez then slammed a double to right-center field to score Redoutey make it 2-0.
The Tigers added two more when Maci Bergeron walked to lead off the sixth and Kelley Lynch singled to right field. A wild pitch and a steal moved pinch runners Madilyn Giglio and Savanna Bedell to second and third. Freshman third baseman Madyson Manning laid down a squeeze bunt to score Giglio, and Bedell came around to score on a throwing error by Liberty first baseman Megan Fortner.
LSU was outhit by the visitors 5-4 but had several well-struck balls right at fielders.
“It’s been a while since we came into the seventh with more than two runs. They have a pretty good pitching staff,” Gutierrez said. “Our hitting coaches prepared us. We knew balls were going to get caught. It all goes with the game. Player to player, we communicated with each other with what we saw. That helped us.”
Torina said her team showed some offensive improvement.
“We keep quality at-bats,” Torina said. “Our goal is 50% and we had 56, so we met our goal and it’s been a few games since we met that goal. We met a lot of goals, checked a lot of boxes.”