North Callaway baseball believed.

North Callaway District Title Game Photo Gallery

After years falling short, the Thunderbirds knew they wouldn’t lose Wednesday's Class 3 District 8 championship game against New Bloomfield at South Callaway in Mokane and were victorious 2-1, winning the program’s first district title since 1999. They were being no-hit by Braden Jackson through three innings but scrapped together hits and runs to advance to the state tournament.

“It means the world to every player that’s played at North Callaway,” head coach Kirt Kleindienst said. “I had friends texting me. It’s running deep for North Callaway. We’ve had full support from the community and administration and all of the players have bought into the message and here we are.”

Kleindienst is in his first year as a head coach with a program where he has been an assistant the last few years. The Eastern Missouri Conference coach of the year Kleindienst said he is glad the program provided some success to a school that hadn’t seen a district championship in a while, as was the case two seasons ago when boys basketball won its first district title since 1999.

“It means more than you know because we’ve been knocking on the door for a few years in different sports,” Kleindienst said. “Baseball, especially, we’ve been right there. For us to fight through a slow start at the plate and finally manufacture a few to be on top, it’s great because we've been on the backside of the last three or four times we’ve played.”

North Callaway (17-9) hadn’t been in a district title game since 2021, when it lost 3-0 to Father Tolton. Before that, it lost 1-0 in the 2010 district championship game to Fulton. 

This year, the Thunderbirds had won some close games — decided by three or less runs — but lost those games to teams outside of the Eastern Missouri Conference, which it won with a 10-0 conference record. After losing to South Callaway, 7-4 to start this season, North Callaway beat the Callaway County rival 7-5 in the district semifinals before taking care of other county rival New Bloomfield (13-9) in a pitcher’s duel.

“Better equipped, I don’t know, but we believed,” Kleindienst said when asked why this team went this far. “We believe in each other, and the guys have stayed together through adversity. They don’t all have to be best friends, but they are all playing for one another. When you believe, that will get you over the hump.”

Keaton Bell pitched seven innings while striking out five in the semifinal win over South Callaway. Sam Pezold and Carter Moore were each rested for the championship game a day later as Pezold started for five innings and Moore covered two innings, combining to allow two hits and one walk. While Bell wasn’t on the mound Wednesday, he came up with the game-winning RBI in the fifth inning after a RBI from senior AJ Haubner.

“There is no better feeling,” Bell said. “This couldn’t mean more to us because we’ve worked too hard to not want it and not be in this position.”

“It’s a great feeling with the guys that we love,” Pezold said. “I couldn’t ask for a better group. Everybody played their butt off today. I’m glad we get to go to practice tomorrow.”

“It’s an awesome feeling,” Moore said. “Even though we had adversity there at the beginning and fell behind, we were able to pull ourselves back and work through it.”

North Callaway is currently averaging a five-season high of 7.8 runs per game and was at about 10 runs per game this season. Senior Kyle Pennell, who earned his first all-Eastern Missouri Conference award this season and made the team along with five other Thunderbirds, said the offense is capable of more but scrapped by to win on Wednesday. 

“It’s just been one day at a time,” Pennell said, “We grinded so hard. We’ve let our defense do work, and then offense was right behind us. We’re not at our full capacity on offense, but we’re still getting it done.”

Bell, Pezold and Moore said the team remained confident even though North Callaway had no hits to show for it through three innings. Pennell said there wasn’t really anything wrong with the offense as he thought good fortune would come.

“We were hitting barrels, and they just started to drop,” Pennell said. “That’s all it was. Baseball was baseball for the first couple innings, but we got the good end of it the last couple.”

Kleindienst commended Pezold on his great performance on the mound, striking out four and walking nobody along the way, before North Callaway could score what Kleindienst called “the hardest run I’ve ever had to try to get across the plate.”

“I felt as if maybe we expected a faster start than what we had and so we were on our heels and weren’t confident with our approach,” Kleindienst said. “If (Pezold) didn’t do his job, we’re not here, but he stayed right through and didn’t change a lick in tempo or body language. That held it right there, and it was just a matter of time if he could hold it there at that one run.”

Without good defense this year, Kleindienst said he isn’t sure if North Callaway would’ve advanced this far. Case in point, after the Thunderbirds had the lead, New Bloomfield had a runner on in the sixth inning that looked as if it would be moved into scoring position. However, the first baseman Haubner made a throw to catch the runner rounding second base, and the shortstop Bell eventually chased down to tag out the runner to complete the rundown and double play.

“It was the play of the game,” Kleindienst said. “The tying run got to second, but the courage AJ Haubner had to throw that baseball was great. I haven’t seen him pull the trigger without hesitation all year. His feel for the game was right on the money there, and whenever KB got the ball from (second baseman) Tucker (Sheets), I knew it was over and KB would catch him.”

“That felt great,” Bell said. “It made me a lot more confident with the rest of the game. It made me happy to say the least.”

Bell, Pezold, Pennell and Moore said they are all excited for practice because it means their team is still playing when so many seasons have ended across the state. Kleindienst said that is good because he believes more work needs to be done before Tuesday’s state tournament game against the District 7 champion. 

“We’re going to enjoy this and get back at it,” The theme for us, ‘Why not us?’ It’s going to be one pitch and one day at a time and let’s see what happens.”