Staff photo by Jeremy Behnke Springfield’s Mason Leonard delivers a pitch against Mankato Loyola on Saturday in the Section 2A playoffs at ISG Field. Springfield won 5-0 to advance to Thursday’s Section 2A championship against an opponent yet to be determined.

MANKATO — If anybody is going to get past Springfield in the Section 2A championship game on Thursday, they’re going to have to figure out how to hit Mason Leonard.

Leonard was once again on his game, going six innings and striking out 11. He allowed two hits as the Tigers sent Mankato Loyola to the elimination bracket with a 5-0 win over the Crusaders Saturday at ISG Field.

Leonard threw 94 pitches, 60 of them for strikes, and he was consistently in the mid-80s with his fastball, which caused a lot of problems for the Crusaders.

Fellow Springfield senior Tori Helget closed the door, striking out one in one inning pitched. He too was efficient, throwing 11 of his 17 pitches for strikes.

Whoever comes out of the elimination bracket on Monday will have to beat Springfield twice. It’ll be tough to do with Leonard and a well-rested Springfield pitching staff going.

Leonard and Loyola starter Logan Carlson were in a pitcher’s duel early on as the game remained scoreless through five innings. Leonard didn’t allow a hit until the fourth inning when Caleb Fogal singled, and the Tigers had chances early on but didn’t cash in.

Jason Berberich was stranded at second in the second inning and the Tigers left the bases loaded in the third inning.

In the fourth inning, they stranded a runner on third and they tried a safety squeeze in the fifth inning, only to see a runner get thrown out at the plate.

“We knew after we had a great game against BOLD [on Thursday], we’re not going to go away from that, but we battled,” Helget said. “Tiger baseball is all about battling, we manufacture runs when we need to. It’s just kids coming up with big hits, finding holes.”

The small ball and aggressiveness didn’t end, though, and the Tigers scored five times in the sixth inning, all coming with two outs. That was more than enough for Helget.

“We’ve talked a lot about before and our mindset is if we score two or three runs, then we’re in ballgames,” Helget said. “Our pitching staff has been phenomenal this year. We’ve got a heck of an ace in Mason Leonard and we’ve got a ninth-grader throwing really well. He’s coming up big in big moments and I think we’re so locked in, we want the big moment.”

The Tigers last made it to state in 2016, the year they won the state title. This year’s senior class was still in seventh grade when that happened.

“It’s awesome finally out here, we had some big goals set at the beginning of the year, and we’re not that far away from reaching those,” Helget said. “We’re going to keep battling.”