Peach County softball wins first region championship

The Peach County Lady Trojans (22-6) defeated the Bainbridge Lady Bearcats (8-11) 12-4 in five innings to win the GHSA 3A Region 1 championship—the first in program history.

FORT VALLEY, Georgia – (41NBC/WMGT) – The Peach County Lady Trojans softball team won the GHSA 3A Region 1 Championship with a 12-4 victory over Bainbridge on Tuesday.

With the win, Peach County secured its first region title in program history. After only winning 24 total games the last three seasons, the Lady Trojans have turned things around under first-year head coach Joey Hiller to earn a record of 22-6 and 9-1 in region play.

After dealing a handful of strikeouts from the mound Tuesday night, senior Gracie Martin ended the match on a game-winning strikeout. As soon as the game ended, Martin ran to her teammate, senior catcher Kaylyn Hornaday, for a celebration hug. Martin spoke about what that moment meant to her.

“Not going to lie, I had a little bit of pressure on me, but I think I handled it pretty well,” she said. “It’s always been a dream of mine to do that. I think we’ve bonded really well as a team together all season. We’ve kind of tried to make that our number one priority, because in the past it’s… but this year, we’ve been really good about it. Team chemistry is really good this year, so I don’t think we would be here without that.  We’ve come a long way from where we started, and I would just like to thank all the teammates for working hard, and I’d like to thank God for giving us the ability to do this, and I’d like to thank all of our coaches for putting all their work into it. Go Trojans!”

Hornaday shared the same excitement as her teammate.

“It’s unreal,” she said. “I knew Grace was going to pitch that last strike. I was just waiting so I could go hug her.”

Coach Hiller is proud of how far these young ladies have come this season.

“Just getting better every day,” he said. “And now they’re the region champions, so I’m so proud of these girls. They’ve worked so hard this year, and I hope they learn lessons from this that hard work does pay off.”