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By KEVIN ECKLEBERRY

Daily News

It’s not the start the Callaway Cavaliers were hoping for, but there’s a long way to go.

Callaway, coming off a season where it won a region championship and advanced to the semifinals of the state playoffs, fell to 1-4 with Tuesday’s 6-4 road loss to Glenwood Christian.

The good news for the Cavaliers is they still have five more games before opening the all-important region schedule with a doubleheader against the Jordan Red Jackets on March 6.

“We’re going to get better,” said Callaway head coach Dusty Hubbard. “I don’t know if I’ve ever been 1-4, but it’s a learning experience. We’re young, and we’re going to get better, and we’re just going to keep pushing and hopefully by the time it’s region time we’ll be playing better baseball.”

In Tuesday’s game, Callaway gave up six runs in the third inning before scoring its four runs in the top of the sixth.

While it wasn’t the outcome Hubbard was hoping for, he did see signs of progress, particularly on offense where the Cavaliers have been struggling.

“We got better today, especially from an offensive standpoint later in the game,” Hubbard said. “We struggled the first three innings, but the last four innings I felt like we really scrapped.”

A lost opportunity in the fifth inning, though, did prove costly.

“In the fifth inning, we had first and second and no outs and didn’t score,” Hubbard said. “At that point it was 6-0 so it dooesn’t look that big, but then we score four in sixth. If we’d gotten one or two of them in, it’s a different ballgame.”

Wesley Marchman, Luke Swann and Zach Neighbors each had hits and RBIs for Callaway, and Jabari Smith had a hit.

Justin Moore was Callaway’s starting pitcher, and Tucker Starling entered the game in the fourth inning and got out of the jam. Hubbard felt Moore was a victim of some misfortune in the fourth inning.

“We walked two, and gave up five hits, and honestly two balls were hit hard,” Hubbard said. “The others were perfectly placed, and it was kind of some bad luck.”

Zach Neighbors pitched three scoreless innings to finish it.

Callaway will host Brookstone on Thursday before traveling to Westminster for a doubleheader on Saturday. After playing Troup on Tuesday, Callaway begins region play at Jordan.

“Our thing right now is, we’ve got to get some time to get on the field, and play, and just get some experience,” Hubbard said. “We need to be able to get on the field and work, and hopefully we’ll be able to do that. The next five days look good (weather-wise), so hopefully we can get some dry weather. Practice is just as important for us right now as the games, we just haven’t been able to get that in.”