'The sweetest, most happy kid that you will ever meet': Athlete of the Week Lizzy Moore

The ball blasted right back up the middle.

Right at pitcher Lizzy Moore.

All around her, players dropped to a knee, wondering if the Garfield softball ace was OK.

"It looked bad," G-Men coach Tina Faulhaber said. "We call time to give her [a moment]. All players drop and give her a knee."

And then something weird happened in the midst of a regular ritual on the softball field. Moore dropped to a knee as well.

"I don't know," Moore said. "Just I got the ball and I wasn't in pain or anything so I was just confused."

It turned out the ball had simply glanced off Moore's glove during Garfield nonleague game against Solon and she was just fine, though a little bewildered about why everyone was kneeling around her. It was a comical moment, but also a revealing one about the Record-Courier Athlete of the Week.

It painted a poignant picture of a pitcher who never flinched — even when she was tossed in the circle as a freshman, even when she faced tough situations over the years, even when young teams made errors behind her and innings ballooned.

For four straight years, Moore absorbed the bulk of the innings for the G-Men, never asking out. Every time Faulhaber asked, "Are you good," she was met with the same response: "I'm good."

"If Coach wants me to pitch a game, I'm going to pitch a game," Moore said. "I just feel like I want to give 100 percent all the time."

Moore never flinched and she never got fed up.

"She's the sweetest, most happy kid that you will ever meet," Faulhaber said. "She's always smiling."

Lizzy Moore thrown into the fire for Garfield

That happy-go-lucky attitude was tested over the years, starting with her very first season of high school softball.

For most players, freshman year is a chance to adapt to high school, play freshman or JV ball and maybe get a little taste of varsity. At smaller schools like Garfield, it's not uncommon for freshmen to skip right to the varsity and even earn regular playing time.

Moore did more than that.

As a freshman, she pitched 92⅔ innings, easily leading the G-Men. The next year, Moore threw even more, topping 100 innings while recording an impressive 3.11 ERA.

"It was definitely kind of intimidating at first, but I think I just honestly got used to it and got the hang of it," Moore said. "I just always reminded myself to have fun and enjoy it."

Moreover, she did all that while never touching 60 on the radar gun.

How did she do it? By embracing being a "junk-ball pitcher," including a lethal change-up.

Some run from that title. Not Moore. She loved the gamesmanship of trying to get a hitter to lunge at her best pitch — a change, a curve, whatever it might be on that afternoon.

"I've worked with my pitching coach and we've kind of discovered that speed is not really my forte and I have more of a spin with my change-up," Moore said. "I have a curveball, I have very good spin and movement on my ball, and a lot of people think good pitchers are just very, very fast pitchers, but that's not always very true. There's junk-ball pitchers like I consider myself. I throw a lot of junk to them and have very good movement."

The end of an era for Lizzy Moore

Every father and daughter are different. In some cases, it's best if dad stays away from the dugout and lets his daughter do her own thing.

For Adam and Lizzy Moore, there was no need for dad to take a seat beyond the outfield. He called her pitches in a setup that worked wonders for father, daughter and coach. (With no varsity assistant, Faulhaber had enough to focus on and take care of during games.)

"I've been pitching with him for like six years, so he definitely knows my pitching style and he just knows all the right pitches to call," Moore said. "We're usually always on the same page when it comes to that."

In some ways, that's what makes the past couple of weeks the hardest for Moore.

This is, after all, the end of her competitive softball career.

She is still undecided about what she is going to study once at Hiram College, but one thing she has decided is that her softball career is over. That means not just saying goodbye to a sport and to her teammates but also to a special chapter of her relationship with her father.

"It was just kind of our thing," Moore said. "Like, I would always go to pitching lessons with him and I'm definitely going to miss it. It was just a really good bonding experience for my dad and I and even with the girls on the team. Like, I've been playing with a lot of them for so long of my life and it's going to be hard for sure."

This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Meet Athlete of the Week Lizzy Moore of Garfield G-Men softball