Sydney Berzon is Carrying Momentum Into the Postseason Following her 'Best Outing' at Oklahoma

NORMAN — Sydney Berzon is entering the postseason hoping to build on one of her best outings of the season.

In the second game of Saturday’s doubleheader in College Station, Berzon pitched five scoreless innings.

She recorded a season-high five strikeouts in her longest outing of the year, both by innings and pitches (61), and she surrendered two hits and no free passes.

Her 57 1/3 innings pitched for the season is by far the smallest workload she’s ever gotten, falling well below last year’s 139 1/3 innings pitched, but Berzon is confident that she’s properly ramping up as postseason play arrives.

“My goal all the time is to keep improving,” Berzon said on Tuesday. “Keep learning from games, innings, even practice. So I'm happy with how the season's been and I'm happy that I'm on a good trajectory right now.”

Oklahoma’s coaching staff has seen a shift in Berzon over the past few weeks, too.

"Coach (Jennifer) Rocha has been feeling it and you could feel a different sense from Berzon when she came out onto the mound,” OU head coach Patty Gasso said. “It was like, ‘I am going to be staying here for a while.’

“You just felt that really solid, great moving pitches, fooled their hitters a bit. Got some strikeouts, got some easy outs that we could handle. It was the best outing she's had.”

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Sophomores Audrey Lowry and Miali Guachino have been comfortable as the Sooners’ 1-2 punch to start each weekend, but Gasso knows how valuable the experience Berzon has can become this time of year.

Though she’s not yet been to the Women’s College World Series, Berzon is a three-time veteran of the SEC Tournament, and she pitched big postseason innings throughout her LSU career.

“Sydney Berzon can bring that energy and give some advice when needed as to what her experiences were like,” Gasso said. “… The experience, she's ready for it, she knows it."

The Sooners’ run at the SEC Tournament in Kentucky will get underway on Thursday when they take on the winner of the 8-9 game between LSU and Georgia.

Berzon is just looking forward to making the most of her final postseason run alongside Rocha, who rejoined the team at the end of March.

“I think it's been awesome,” Berzon said. “I mean, she's the best pitching coach in the country, so just being able to work under her and take that into the postseason has been great.”

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