Before Paige Liezert had thrown a single pitch in high school, Crown Point softball coach Angie Richwalski believed a future ace was on the way.
Liezert is fulfilling that promise this season.
“We’ve been expecting this from her, and it’s been great to see it all come to fruition,” Richwalski said.
Liezert’s season-ending injury during her freshman year proved to be only a minor hurdle on her path to stardom. As a junior, the Illinois-Chicago commit has emerged as one of the state’s top pitchers.
Following her five-inning shutout of Kankakee Valley on Monday, Liezert had a 0.96 ERA and 168 strikeouts in 80 1/3 innings, and she had nearly as many wins (11) as walks allowed (14).
Richwalski said Liezert’s most recent success for the Bulldogs (19-2, 10-1), who trailed Duneland Athletic Conference leader Lake Central by one game before a showdown Tuesday and are on pace for their best record since at least 2021, comes from mastering the more cerebral parts of the game.
“She’s starting to understand how to use the entire strike zone and how to see it from a batter’s perspective more,” Richwalski said. “We’ve also worked on trying something else when she gets a swing and a miss so that batters aren’t seeing the same pitch over and over again.
“She’s really maturing in terms of how to manipulate batters and work the count.”
Amid Liezert’s dominance this season and early commitment to a Division I program, teammates like sophomore catcher Evi Cuevas said there has been no change in her calm, soft-spoken personality — aside from a brief show of frustration when a pitch misses its mark.
“She’s definitely quiet,” Cuevas said of Liezert. “She’s not someone who’s going to call a lot of attention to herself.”
That’s likely because Liezert believes her pitching isn’t anything extraordinary.
“I just show up and do my job, and I feel like that’s what I’m supposed to be doing,” she said. “I’m glad that I’m contributing to my team’s success, but I wouldn’t be in this position without the defense behind me or the offense getting runs on the board for our win. It’s definitely a team effort.”
Two years ago, Liezert wasn’t part of that team effort for very long. She suffered an avulsion fracture in her right wrist after pitching just nine innings.
“It was from the way I was pitching at that time,” she said. “I overstretched some of the ligaments in the forearm, which ended up tearing the bone off and creating a fracture.”
Liezert was sidelined for two months after the injury, a span that felt much longer to an athlete who had never experienced an injury recovery period.
“It was devastating,” she said. “It was the first injury of my career that actually put me on the bench. I was so excited to play because I’d made varsity as a freshman and was ready to prove that I belonged there, and I wasn’t able to help my teammates either.”
After her wrist healed, Liezert said she tweaked her mechanics to prevent future issues, utilizing her fingers more to create movement with her pitches. She has also had regular dry-needling procedures, acupuncture-like treatments that relieve tension in the forearm muscles.
Healthy last season, Liezert went 5-3 with a 1.89 ERA and 129 strikeouts in 59 1/3 innings.
“It was super exciting to finally contribute to the team and to make more connections with the girls on the team because I was actually playing,” she said.
Buoyed by that success, Liezert made an effort to improve her repertoire during the offseason.
“I definitely worked more on my breaking pitches, making them more deceiving by having them break later with more of a sharp break to the plate than a gradual one,” she said.
It’s all coming together for Liezert as the postseason approaches. Crown Point will play Morton on May 27 in the first game of a Class 4A sectional that also includes Lake Central and Munster.
“When Paige came in as a freshman, we were super excited for her because she came in with a tool belt full of weapons,” Richwalski said. “Now we’ve reached a place where we know how to keep her healthy and she knows how to use all of the tools that she has.”
Dave Melton is a freelance reporter.
