Before Mexico had the chance to hit on Thursday, it was down four runs.

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The Lady Bulldogs trailed 4-0 after one half of the Class 4 District 5 tournament first-round game against Holt in Hannibal before eventually running away with a 14-4 five-innings victory. In the teams’ first ever meeting in the first season Mexico moved up to Class 4, the Lady Bulldogs stole 12 bases and took advantage of six Holt errors.

Landri Teel tied the game at 4 with a RBI triple in the second inning and finished 2-for-4 with two RBI. Keerstan Ewing has been Mexico’s No. 1 pitcher all year but could only record the first two outs of the game before Aleigha Henderson took over the rest of the way. Teel said everybody struggles at one point, but Mexico has many others in that dugout.

“We need to pick each other up,” Teel said. “If something bad happens, we need to pick each other up and just move on and play for each other.”

Teel said the Lady Bulldogs (15-14) have so much confidence right now in their offense — averaging six runs per game after Thursday — that they weren’t “too worried” about the early deficit. She added there are several ways Mexico can score.

While Mexico had some RBI hits, the Lady Bulldogs relied heavily on its baserunning against Holt’s defense. The Lady Indians (4-13) had a freshman Alivia Claus in the circle as well so head coach Hanna Branch said Mexico wanted to take advantage wherever it could.

“I appreciate the girls being aggressive on the bases,” Branch said. “The girls were hungry on the bases. They were doing a good job of anticipating misplays or mistakes they were making defensively. They never let up. They never were stuck at one base or going station-to-station.”

Maddy Feger, Hannah Loyd and Ewing each stole three bases for Mexico. The Lady Bulldogs had six different girls steal a base.

Branch said she is proud to have a team that “never quits” and didn’t sense any concern from her players after the first inning. Mexico showed that on the field by immediately scoring two runs in the bottom half of the first inning.

Teel hit the first of her three-hard hit balls that turned into an error and run. The Lady Bulldogs then executed on the bases by scoring via a steal of home by Maddy Feger while Teel provided a distraction by stealing second base. In the next inning, when Mexico took a 5-4 lead, Feger helped Loyd steal home in the same way.

“It’s making sure we play on the unexpected, confusing the defense a little bit,” Branch said. “Hannah and Maddy do a really good job of reading things. They have really good focus on the bases and good reads.”

Teel was even more aggressive than usual, Branch said, after lining a ball to the fence in the second inning. Branch said Teel doesn’t leg out a triple too often and even held up a stop sign that Teel disregarded. She had to be happy about the result, which preceded a RBI groundout by Payton Shaw that gave Mexico the lead for good.

“I definitely wasn’t anticipating her running like a freight train through that,” Branch said. “I was proud of her for hustling because if you have a better read on it, go for it. Just don’t be out.”

Teel has been “doing a job” whenever runners have been in scoring position this season as the team’s No. 3 hitter. She made sure she was safe at third base on her triple.

“She was moving her arms, then I looked down and looked back up and she was (holding up the stop signal),” Teel shared her thoughts while rounding second base. “I was like ‘Oh no.’ As soon as I got there, she was like ‘You’re good.’”

Branch said Henderson came in with a lot of confidence and did well to prevent Holt from scoring after the fourth inning. Henderson struck out four, walked three and allowed one hit while retiring the final 13 batters. 

While Ewing is the one who faltered this time, there have been other times where Henderson has struggled and Ewing has backed her up. Branch said Ewing isn’t a “machine” that will always be perfect and likes how she affected the game on offense.  

“The thing about Aleigha and Keerstan is they are really supportive of one another, which is very rare for people that are playing the same position,” Branch said. “If one person is struggling one day, the other person picks them up. Aleigha came in with the mindset of ‘I got your back.’”

Branch said this supportive attitude and hot offense hopefully will lead to a victory for No. 3 seed Mexico in the semifinals at 1:30 p.m. Saturday against No. 2 seed and state No. 10 St. Dominic (17-6). Mexico hasn’t played St. Dominic since the Lady Bulldogs’ most recent state championship season in 2018, when they defeated St. Dominic 8-1 in sectionals.

“I feel like we got really good energy, and I feel like the girls’ bats are still pretty hot,” Branch said. “We’ve got a lot of confidence, but we also know it’s going to be a tough game.”