The season ended one game shy of a district championship title game for the Southern Boone County softball team after a 1-0 loss to top seed Mexico on Thursday.

The Eagles were the No. 6 ranked team in the district, meaning they would have to go through the No. 3 team Centralia and No. 1 Mexico if they wanted to reach the championship game. Hosting districts on the recently opened turf field, SoBoCo had homefield advantage for the tournament, giving an extra boost of excitement with the home crowd.

And the Eagles didn’t disappoint the home crowd against Centralia for the first game of districts on Wednesday. Fans were on the edges of their seat as the defense and strong pitching from junior Camryn Schaller kept the game close in a 1-0 win.

One mistake by Centralia was all SoBoCo needed to score the winning run in the first inning. Schaller singled on the first at-bat of the game to provide a baserunner. Carrie Ponder laid down a sacrifice bunt to move Schaller to second and a ground out by Dani Post to the shortstop advanced the runner to third. During Andrea Reeder’s at bat, a passed ball brought in the runner for the only score of the game.

~ Get more of this story in today’s Journal ~

By Briley Eilers