Another day, another meltdown.

St. Aloysius committed an egregious nine errors, five of which scored runs, and dropped its fourth straight loss 15-12 to visiting St. Andrews at Bazinsky Park on Saturday.

Making the errors even more painful was who committed them. Seniors Pierson Waring and Stephen Evans combined for five of them. Making Waring’s bad day even worse was his line from his one-inning relief stint on the mound: seven batters faced, three hit batsmen, one walk, and four earned runs. Waring was tagged with the loss.

“We’ve completely forgotten how to win games,” St. Al coach Clint Wilkerson said. “We’ve gone in the tank. We’re playing the worst baseball we’ve played in my six years here.”

In the top of the seventh with the scored tied at 11, Waring got the hook after Stephen Evans’ throw sailed over Josh Eargle’s head at first and Waring hit next batter Josh Scarbrough to put two on. Reliver Regan Nosser struck out Zack Weber for the first out of the frame, but walked Macharia Funches to load the bases.

Davis Woodall blasted a 2-1 offering over the heart of the plate off the wall in center for a triple, clearing the bases. A booted throw by Waring, who had moved back to shortstop, allowed Woodall to sprint home to give the Saints a 15-11 lead they’d never relinquish.

Stephen Evans led off the bottom of the seventh with a double off Webber, but all the Flashes could manage was an RBI groundout by Nosser and St. Andrews ace Webber (6-2) earned the win in two innings of two-hit relief.

The primary sticky wicket for the St. Al pitchers was an inability to work ahead in counts as they issued seven walks.

“We’re not making the routine plays,” Wilkerson said. “We’re not making the great plays. We’re not pitching ahead in counts. There is no phase of the game that we are doing well.”

Starter Eargle lasted three innings and was pulled after walking the first two he faced in the fourth. He gave up five runs on three hits with one strikeout. He faced 19 batters and never pitched with an 0-2 count to any of them. Reed Evans lasted an inning as did Waring. Nosser finished out the contest in the seventh.

“Sometimes, you feel that Saturday is a swing-the-bat day,” St. Andrews coach Mark Fanning said. “I didn’t think we could match up with them hitter to hitter. We had a lot of guys step up with big at-bats for us.”

The contest didn’t start off well for St. Al (11-4). Eargle walked the first two Saints he faced and they took advantage, with both scoring off a two-out single by Funches.

St. Al replied with four in the bottom of the frame. Stephen Evans drove in a run off a single and Nosser plated two more with a double to put the Flashes up 4-2.

In the top of the second, the Flashes got a spectacular diving play at first by Reed Evans, who caught a soft tapper and fired it to second for an inning-ending double play to get Eargle out of a two-on, one-out jam.

The two teams spent the rest of the contest trading leads. St. Andrews got an RBI single by Funches in the third and two runs off errors, but the Flashes grabbed the lead back at 6-4 as an error and a fielder’s choice by catcher Brendan Beesley put two on the board. The Saints knotted the contest again in the fourth at 6-6 as Weber lanced a sharp RBI double and another run scored off an errant throw to third by Beesley. Stephen Evans and Eargle had RBI singles in the bottom of the frame to put St. Al back up 8-6. Back-to-back errors by Stephen Evans at third allowed two runs to score and an RBI groundout by John Sullivan pushed the Saints back in front in the fifth at 9-8.

Beesley scored on a Saints’ error in the bottom of the inning. Stephen Evans got the two runs back with a two-RBI double and Reed Evans plated him with a single as the Flashes pushed back in front 11-9.

Contact Steve Wilson at swilson@vicksburgpost.com