Texas A&M’s Allie Enright gets key hit in win over No. 5 LSU

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) - Last season, LSU pitcher Sydney Berzon was an unstoppable force, holding the Texas A&M softball team to one run and 10 hits in three appearances. On her efforts, the Tigers swept the Aggies.

Friday, A&M center fielder Allie Enright knew her team would play with a chip on their shoulder, welcoming No. 5 LSU to Davis Diamond for a three-game series. Ultimately, as head coach Trisha Ford pointed out, the softball gods found favor in Enright, which led to a 12-7 No. 3 Aggie win in the opening game of the series.

“That’s a kid that puts in a lot of work and somebody that I feel like the game knows,” Ford said.

With the game knotted at five in the bottom of the fourth, Enright came to the plate with the bases loaded and one out. Already riding a four-game hit streak with a single in the first inning, the senior needed to find that knockout blow that eluded the Aggies (35-5, 9-3) a year prior.

Berzon entered the 2025 season with the same dominance she showed last year, setting a new LSU record for best start to a season with a 13-0 record. The All-American entered Friday’s contest 15-2 with a 1.94 ERA. She hadn’t allowed a run in her last two outings.

“Sydney is a tremendous pitcher and somebody that — what she’s really good at is getting you to chase her pitches,” Ford said.

Up to Enright’s fourth-inning at-bat, the Aggies had showed exceptional patience at the plate, working into hitter’s counts. By the end of Berzon’s outing, she faced 27 batters, but only threw 11 first-pitch strikes.

However, one of those 11 was against Enright, who swung at a pitch slightly outside the zone for a foul ball.

From her experience last season, Enright knew Berzon was a change-of-pace pitcher for the Tigers (35-6, 8-5). Her fastball was used as a jab to set up off-speed haymakers.

“I knew going into this she has two pitches — hard and soft,” Enright said. “My whole plan all day off her was to look for something hard until I got two strikes and then just fight it off. Then, when I got into a full count, I kind of knew that she had to bring something over the plate.”

Enright watched a ball high, before fouling off and outside pitch back to the net for her second strike. Berzon dropped the 1-2 pitch below the strike zone, hoping Enright would chase. She did not.

The next pitch was the fastball that Enright was hunting. Following the pitch, she punched the high fastball to the right side of the field, but realized immediately that she got under it. The ball should have landed in second baseman Maddox McKee’s glove for the second out of the inning.

For all the work that Enright puts into her craft, this was her reward, Ford said after the game.

McKee lost track of her first baseman, glancing down to make sure she still had room. In that moment, she lost the ball and a diving effort into foul territory couldn’t make the play.

Enright had new life.

After fouling two more pitches off, Enright took a pitch right at the knees that caused the collective crowd to hold their breath for a moment. No motion from the umpire brought the count full on a ball low.

“I think Allie was probably fooled on it, if I’m being perfectly honest,” Ford said after the game. “And so, ‘Let’s not swing at it.‘… That’s a senior that’s been in a lot of situations that I think just is very confident in her approach and knew what she was looking for. It was huge.”

After the crowd came to their feet for the payoff pitch, Berzon threw a fastball down the middle of the zone that Enright jumped on. The line drive to center scored two and broke up a tie that stood for nearly two innings.

While Enright said she knew one of her other teammates would break the stalemate that inning if she didn’t come through, she knew the base knock was a momentum shifter for the Aggies.

“They had a miscue and Allie made them pay for it. I was excited for that. Great job for her to focus back up,” Ford said.

Enright’s scoring play was a part of a four-run fourth inning that gave the Aggies a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.

Enright’s game-changing moment was made possible, in part, by a 4 for 5 night at the plate by Mya Perez, which included three doubles. She also drove in a pair of RBIs. Designated player Mac Barbara got the Aggie scoring off the ground with a three-run homer in the first that landed well past the wall in right and into the glove of Aggie men’s basketball forward Andersson Garcia outside the stadium.

“I didn’t really get a green light, necessarily,” Perez said of legging out her doubles. “I would just go in and see if I could make it or not. But, I knew I would, because I’m aggressive and I was going to slide into the bag. It was cool.”

A&M ace Emily Kennedy (13-3) got the win in the circle, allowing seven runs on 10 hits with five strikeouts. Berzon (15-3) took the loss in four innings of work, allowing nine runs on eight hits. She threw one strikeout and walked four batters.

Now, it’s up to the Aggies to turn a game-winning at-bat into a revenge series win against a squad that swept A&M last season and continue the push for a top-8 seed in the NCAA Tournament. First pitch of the second game of the series is at 2 p.m. Saturday.

“Obviously, we want to sweep them,” Enright said. “But, I think it’s just us playing with a chip on our shoulder.”