There were some down moments for North Callaway on the first day of the softball season on Saturday but also quite a few encouraging ones.

North Callaway vs Southern Boone Photo Gallery

The Ladybirds finished the day 1-2 to take fourth place in the Hallsville Invitational, while facing opponents who had a combined record of 57-25-1 last season. North Callaway defeated reigning district champion Salisbury 8-3, then lost 13-0 to reigning district champion Hallsville and just fell short to Southern Boone in the third-place game.

Head coach Mariah McKee said it was good to see what North Callaway can work on early in a season with high expectations. Any flaws are more noticeable if the competition is stacked like it was for the Ladybirds on opening day. Overall, McKee said the day was encouraging for the program that made the jump to Class 3 after a 17-16 season last year in Class 2.

“It makes us feel like that you can put us up there in Class 3, we can hang,” McKee said. “It’s good for the girls to see they can do it as well because we know they can.”

Concerns were nonexistent after just one inning as North Callaway scored six runs against perennial powerhouse Salisbury, who made the jump to Class 2 this year after four Final Fours in the past six seasons. Five Ladybirds recorded hits in the first inning against Salisbury, and the team finished with nine hits. 

Ella Slater had a RBI double in that first inning that saw the top three in the lineup reach base. Abigail Schmidt, Kendra Pennell and Maddy Gordon each had a RBI. 

“The girls just came out ready and are ready to see what they can do,” McKee said. “They’re excited to play some ball.”

The leadoff hitter and No. 1 pitcher Megan Schmidt had a solid day with eight strikeouts and four hits allowed in six innings to Salisbury. Schmidt pitched two innings in the third-place game before being given the rest of the day off.

“She’s throwing the ball well as against Salisbury, she was lights out,” McKee said. “We’re really excited about her. When she’s in the circle, it’s definitely a different atmosphere too.”

Hallsville shut North Callaway down as Haley Martin tossed a five-inning no-hitter with seven strikeouts while the Ladybirds had four errors. North Callaway had to turn the page after one bad performance against a team that had 24 wins and was state-ranked all last season.

North Callaway scored first against Southern Boone on an error that allowed courtesy runner Ella Neal to slide in safely. The Ladybirds fought from behind the rest of the way though as three more North Callaway errors turned into two unearned runs. 

The deficit was cut to 3-2 in the fourth inning after Faith Cash scored off an error and was cut to one run again after Olivia Knoepflein and Abigail Schmidt each had RBI singles in the fifth inning. Those two at-bats were made possible after Southern Boone dropped a potential inning-ending double play. North Callaway scored three unearned runs.

“One of our things this year is we’re going to try to be more aggressive on the basepaths and take advantage of things,” McKee said. “We’re not going to always be able to hit every single person all the time so we’ve got to make some havoc on the basepaths and make them try to make some mistakes so we can capitalize on it.”

McKee said her lineup had hits throughout the order so nobody stuck out too much, but that’s a good thing. She said they have plenty of talent that can produce positive results like in North Callaway’s Eastern Missouri Conference season opener at 5 p.m. Thursday at Van-Far (0-2).

“We had a few errors here and there,” McKee said. “A lot of that, we did that to ourselves. The more practice we get and the more things we work on, those things are going to get better.”