Two days after a rare loss, North Callaway gutted out a victory at Hallsville.

The Thunderbirds won 1-0 at Hallsville (1-4) in eight innings on Thursday after an 8-6 loss at Eastern Missouri Conference foe Wright City (3-1, 1-0 EMO), which was their first conference loss since May 8, 2023. 

Coltyn O’Neal made his first leadoff appearance of the season for North Callaway (3-2, 0-1 EMO) against Hallsville and ended up scoring the winning run via an error by the catcher as he was stealing third base. O’Neal started the eighth inning with a nine pitch walk. He finished 2-3 with three of the team’s five stolen bases. 

“He is going to get comfortable there,” head coach Kirt Kleindienst said. 

Kleindienst said he thought North Callaway hit the ball hard a few times, but the wind knocked it down. 

Carson Bassett came in to pitch relief and went six innings with six strikeouts and one hit, which is all that Hallsville had.

Kleindienst said the first inning at Wright City cost the Thunderbirds as Wright City scored five runs to answer North Callaway’s two runs. He added Wright City did well advancing runners taking advantage of mistakes and that the Wildcats’ fundamentals were strong.

“The bottom line is we had too many walks and too many strikeouts looking,” Kleindienst said.

O’Neal went 2-for-4 with two runs, Bassett finished 2-for-4 with one RBI and Tucker Sheets went 2-for-3 with one RBI.