St. Al’s bats were as cold as the February air in their 10-1 loss to Salem Monday night.

The Lady Flashes managed just three hits in seven innings, and Salem pitcher Alex Pigott had five strikeouts.

“We only scored one run – and it was unearned,” St. Al coach Gene Rogillio said. “You’re not going to win ballgames if you don’t put a ball out of the infield until the bottom of the seventh.”

Sarah Kerut’s RBI single in the third scored Catelyn Park for the Lady Flashes’ lone run.

Hannah Hayes put St. Al in a position to score in the fourth and sixth with a pair of one-out hits. Both times, the next two batters were retired to end the inning and St. Al was unable to capitalize.

“(Pigott) is a very good pitcher,” Salem coach Bird Martin said. “She’s only a junior, but she’s going to be a great asset to some college somewhere someday.”

St. Al’s true demise came in its defense. Eighth-grader Sarah Franco struck out nine batters and gave up only six hits, but 10 errors by the Lady Flashes allowed Salem to score six unearned runs.

“(Franco) did a good job on the mound, but we just made too many errors,” Rogillio said. “That’s all there is to it. Throwing errors, catching errors, mental errors, all kind of errors. We just made too many of them.”

Only one Salem batter failed to reach base, and six of them crossed the plate at least once. None, however, had more than one hit.

A double by Carla Barnes in the top of the first scored Pam Martin for the first run of the game, and the Lady Cats built up a solid 6-1 lead by the end of the fourth. It looked as if a turnaround might be on its way in the fifth as Franco shut down the Lady Cats 1-2-3, but they scored three more times on several errors in the sixth to push the lead to 9-1.

“I just hope that we can overcome all the mental errors,” Rogillio said. “When the ball comes to you and you don’t know where to go with it, that’s a problem. We’re just going to have to work on that stuff in practice if we expect to win any games.”