It wasn’t the ending the North Callaway baseball team wanted Monday, but it believes it was better than early in the season.
The Thunderbirds lost its Class 3 District 7 Tournament semifinal game 11-1 in five innings to top seed and Class 3 No. 10 Father Tolton in Mokane. The Trailblazers finished with seven extra base hits, while North Callaway totaled just three hits.
North Callaway coach Zeth Lavy said his team didn’t have an answer to an offense that has averaged 9.8 runs per game this season, but he thought the Thunderbirds were a better team than in the first half of the year.
“The last three weeks or so, we played a few errorless games,” Lavy said. “At the beginning of the season, that didn’t feel like it was possible. If we played the opening-day T-Birds, we 10-run them. It’s a completely different ballclub. That’s a testament to their hard work and doing their job every day.”
Compared with the Thunderbirds’ first loss against Tolton (13-3), a 17-7 contest April 25 in Kingdom City, North Callaway grew into a more solid defensive and contact-oriented team. The Thunderbirds had a season-high six errors in the first meeting with Tolton and struck out seven times but finished Monday with two errors and two strikeouts.
North Callaway and Tolton each proved to be aggressive teams Monday as the game started with quick innings. Davis Woods had a few first-pitch outs but also abruptly surrendered a home run to Logan Thompson, making it 1-0 Tolton after one.
Woods made a quick exit in the second inning after he couldn’t grasp a tapper in the infield hit by Conner Head. Andrew Green and Cameron each drove in a pair of runs with singles for a 5-0 Tolton lead, forcing Lavy to bring in sophomore Sam Pezold with one out.
“They’re an offensive force,” Lavy said. “I thought, early on, Davis did a good job. He’s attacking and then just missing in the second inning. They’ll punish you if you give them extra outs, and that’s exactly what they did.”
The hits got deeper for the Trailblazers again as Thompson and JC Putnam hit back-to-back doubles for a 7-0 lead after two innings.
The Thunderbird offense kept getting under the pitches thrown by Jake Ryan, being shut out except for the fourth inning. Senior Jackson Althiser and sophomore Kyle Pennell hit two straight singles to spoil the no-hitter. Woods hit a pitch deep into the outfield for a sacrifice fly and a 7-1 game.
“We knew he was going to come right at us,” Lavy said. We didn’t want to get down to two-strike counts and run up the strikeouts. We wanted to put the ball in play.”
Tolton wrapped up the game with one out in the fifth inning as the Trailblazers led off the frame with three doubles and ended it with a two-run double from Jacob Hoernschmeyer.
North Callaway finishes this season with a 12-12 record, improving from 11-14 a season ago, and a 5-5 Eastern Missouri Conference record. The Thunderbirds started the season with at 3-6 and won six of their final 10 games to close out the year.
Lavy said the team’s three seniors — Althiser, Blake Whipple and Payton Olsson — had a hand in helping the team evolve for the better. He said this senior group is special to him personally because he started as the head coach four years ago and was able to see them grow from their time as freshman.
“I just wanted to make sure to give those guys credit for all their hard work over the years and make sure the whole team knew I appreciate their growth,” Lavy said. It didn’t just happen. There’s a reason for that that we got better. The second half of the season was a whole lot better than the first, but we just didn’t get it done today.”