The North Callaway green and South Callaway blue matched up once again Monday night, but pink was the color on everybody’s minds.

North Callaway Pink Out Game

The Ladybirds snapped a nine-game losing streak that spanned back to 2017 with a 73-10 win, but both teams were united in wishing good luck to former North Callaway volleyball coach and physical education teacher Amy Wells. She has been diagnosed with breast cancer, convincing her immediate family and community family to plan a night they could raise money for her.

Head coach Tim Turlington said he lost his mother to cancer so the night had a personal meaning to him but also reinforced why he has stayed in the North Callaway community for 19 years.

“Cancer is just an insidious disease,” Turlington said. “This is a great thing for Amy Wells. That’s one thing about the North Callaway community and the same thing with South Callaway and these small schools — we’re a family. If I ever need anything and if Amy Wells, she needs something, people are going to show up and do whatever they can to help you. That’s worth a lot to me and to a lot of people in this community. It’s not like that everywhere.”

Turlington said coaches should be appreciative of their tight-knit and helpful communities, and Wells herself echoed those sentiments when she talked to the crowd after the game. Wells acknowledged she isn’t the most eager person when it comes to asking for help but is thankful for all the help she has received before and during Monday and will receive in the future.

As for the Ladybirds (7-5), Turlington said he was glad to give everyone some playing time, especially when starters were lifted permanently from the game with two minutes left in the third quarter and North Callaway ahead 69-8. Up to that point, Riley Blevins had a game-high 22 points, Natalie Shryock followed with 20 points, eight assists and six steals, and Jalyn Leible finished with 11 points and three steals.

Turlington said North Callaway did a great job all night showing “intensity” as the Ladybirds were coming off a close 42-34 loss almost a week ago in Hallsville. North Callaway was especially intense with its pressure on defense, coming away with 22 steals.

“We had three practices after the Hallsville game,” Turlington said. “We talked about intensity, talked about playing with effort, and trying to improve on what we did in the first half of the season into the second half of the season — what are we going to do better. We wanted to see defensive intensity and us executing a little better on offense — cut better, screen better, take better shots and things like that.”

The three “solid” practices Turlington said the Ladybirds had led to three dominating quarters as North Callaway built a margin greater than 20 points after one quarter and 40 points at halftime, with a 48-6 lead.

South Callaway (0-7) broke free of North Callaway’s press a few times after successfully inbounding the ball as Jacque Boese scored near the end of the first quarter after Reagan Arrowood pushed the ball down the floor. Arrowood quickly moved behind the defense for a layup with about three minutes left in the second quarter, but the Lady Bulldogs didn’t break 10 points until late in the fourth quarter.

Turlington said he is confident South Callaway won’t be down for long as he said perennial all-conference and all-district — and even all-state in some cases — players like Paige Clubb, DeLaney Horstman and Raegan Brown aren’t going to be replaced so easily. After eight straight winning seasons strewn with district titles, he said he thinks South Callaway head coach Daniel Burns will get this current inexperienced but talented group through this down period.

“We’ve all been there,” Turlington said. “It’s hard (rebuilding), but he does a really good job with them. They’re playing hard, they’re moving the ball, and they’re trying to do what he’s asking them to do. As a coach, you can’t ask anymore than that. You just don’t walk out into the hall and say, ‘Hey, you three girls, come on, you’re ready.’ It takes a long time to get girls to play, boys to play or anybody to play at that level.”

North Callaway was able to reward some of the girls that consistently work hard in practice with minutes they don’t usually get during a game. Sophomores Cora Tripp and Lia Bondurant each picked up a couple of baskets as the clock was running down in the game.

“Hopefully, we can get them more minutes as the year progresses,” Turlington said. “Some of them have been playing really good in games up to this point. Hopefully playing that much will help them get a little more confidence in what they’re doing leading up to the next few games and the rest of the season.”

North Callaway has confidence in all of the players on its roster, and South Callaway has confidence its program will reach an up period again. Wells was also pretty confident based on her emphatic words during her postgame address. 

The former coach said cancer usually provides the options of fighting to win or giving up to lose, and she said she has always been “too stubborn to lose.” Most of the night, Wells had a smile on her face while conversing with friends and family and is confident she’ll have plenty of opportunities to do so in the future.

“I can’t wait until I beat it so I can help the next person fight cancer,” Wells said.