To a casual observer, everything must have seemed backward during the No. 5 Missouri softball team’s Black and Gold Intersquad game, which the Black team won 8-0 on Saturday at Dan Devin Pavillion.

Redshirt junior Chelsea Thomas —the ace pitcher, member of the United States Women’s National Team, USA Softball Player of the Year finalist and First Team All-American, among a plethora of other honors — wound up as the losing pitcher. She gave up four runs and recorded a relatively scant six strikeouts.

Senior Kristin Nottelmann was the winning pitcher, with eight strikeouts and only two hits allowed during six innings. Although she had a very impressive junior season, with a 17-1 record and 1.91 ERA, her only honor received was First Team All-Academic Big 12.

This was all part of the plan, the players and coaches said.

“I came in to this thing disappointed, because I thought ‘What a dumb move. You put your best nine hitters against your ace pitcher,’” coach Ehren Earleywine said. “So, I’m either going to be leaving here mad at my hitters because Chelsea Thomas struck them all out, or they’re going to mash Chelsea, and I’m going to be mad at her. I basically set myself up for a bad day before I even got up.”

Earleywine’s decision was a double-edged sword, one in which the hitters came out on top. The Black team started the scoring off in the bottom of the second inning, when an error and dropped third strike put junior third baseman Nicole Hudson and freshman catcher Angela Randazzo on base. They were later driven in by another error and a ground ball to the pitcher.

The Black team added runs in every inning except the fourth and sixth. Their scoring was capped off by a long Ashley Fleming home run to left-center field. The senior first baseman and member of the preseason USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year Watch List went 2-for-5 on the day.

“There were a couple of things I felt that I was doing that I could have done better, but overall, I feel like I’m seeing the ball good and made good contact on a couple swings,” Fleming said.

Thomas, despite her less-than-impressive stat line, had a positive outlook on the day’s events.

“I got to face a lot of our best players, and that was a challenge for me,” she said. “It went how I thought it was going to go, and I’m totally happy. I get excited when my team hits well off of me, because I can only imagine what they’re going to do off of other pitchers out there.”

The No. 5 Tigers start their season Friday, facing Ball State in the Quality Inn Classic in Troy, Ala.