By Kevin Eckleberry

Sports Editor

She was the right person at the right moment.

With her team trailing 1-0 in the sixth inning against Westfield Saturday afternoon, LaGrange Academy’s Abby Child stepped to the plate with a couple of runners on.

Child, a senior, has been a remarkable hitter since she joined the program as an eighth-grader, and she has come through with countless big hits over the past five seasons.

Add one more clutch hit to the ledger.

On the first pitch of her at-bat in the sixth inning, Child drove the ball over the right-field fence to turn a one-run deficit into a 3-1 lead, and that was the final score in the GISA matchup.

Child then went to the mound in the top of the seventh and set Westfield down to get the save for her sister, Molly Child, who pitched the first six innings.

Abby Child is often pitched around in similar situations, but she always goes to the plate looking for a pitch to hit.

“I usually go up there expecting a strike, and I got one,” said Child, who had both of her team’s hits.

Khadija Neely and Molly Child each earned one-out walks to set up Child’s game-winning blast.

“All that comes about from having two girls in front of her who were selective and drew walks,” LaGrange Academy head coach Charles Parker said.

Westfield left 10 runners on base in the game and had numerous opportunities to break it open, but Parker said Molly Child was at her best when the situations were the tensest.

“When she needed to throw good pitches when she was in trouble, she did,” Parker said.

The victory was an important one, Parker said, because of the tough loss the Lady Warriors were coming off of on Thursday.

LaGrange Academy gave up two runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to lose 4-3 to Flint River Academy.

It was the Lady Warriors’ first region loss since 2002.

“I’m extremely proud of the way we played coming back from what happened on Thursday,” Parker said. “We got down, but we knew what we had to do, and it worked for us.”

LaGrange Academy faces another tough test on Thursday when it hosts Arlington, the top-ranked team in Class AA.