Switching to the Mississippi Association of Independent Schools is still affecting St. Aloysius’ fast-pitch softball team. The Lady Flashes only scored two runs against Manchester Saturday at Bazinsky Park and lost via the mercy rule, 13-2 in six innings.

It was St. Al’s 10th consecutive loss to start the season. While the scoreboard might not reflect their improvement, the players kept their heads high and remained focused during the losing streak.

“Everything this season has been a struggle for the girls. Considering how many people we lost, including our pitcher and getting thrown into a season last minute, I can’t really ask much more of them,” said St. Al head coach Candice Reeder.

Reeder said she’s never had to start over the way she did this season.

The Flashes lost five starters — four to graduation, plus eighth-grade pitcher Stephanie Schoonover, who moved away.

“We still haven’t had but maybe a full month of practice,” Reeder said. “And that’s only practicing one or two days a week. We’re stretched really thin based on what we can do. It’s all new territory for us.”

Because the fast-pitch season is played in the fall — as opposed to the spring like in the Mississippi High School Activities Association — Reeder has several players involved in two or three sports this season.

Sophomore Brooklyn Richards has been behind the plate for the Flashes since she was in seventh grade, and is now one of the team’s pitchers.

“She picked up the ball one day and started pitching. I was like ‘huh, you look pretty good there,’” Reeder said.

Richards struck out two batters for the first time in the second inning. She took a lot of positives away from Saturday’s game.

“I just try to get better every game and sometimes it’s on and sometimes it’s not. Everybody kept positive attitudes on the field and nobody got down on themselves,” Richards said.

The play in the outfield has seen improvement, thanks to the effort of Anna Katherine Beauchamp, Kyla Goodlow and her teammates. Beauchamp made several catches in the outfield against the Mavericks.

Beauchamp said she has worked on keeping her eye on the ball to be able to come up with big catches for outs.

“She’s (Beauchamp) so quick. She’s a leader out there, stepped up and takes control. She’s made some outstanding catches in the outfield,” Reeder said. “The other two outfielders I had, one of them hasn’t played since the second grade and Kyla’s first year to ever play was last year and still they’re doing good.”

After all the improvements made in the outfield and pitching staff, the biggest weakness has been hitting. The Lady Flashes only had four hits Saturday, including two by Allie Falls.

Hannah Ashley had a two-run single in the bottom of the first inning to tie the score at 2-2. Manchester regained the lead with two unearned runs in the second inning, then scored seven times in the fourth to blow it open.

Reeder said she only has two girls with legitimate experience playing fast-patch softball, and they’ve been playing the game since they were 5 years old.

“I have two other girls with a good bit of experience,” Reeder said. “The rest of them don’t. So for us to put the ball in play, I’m okay with that. We just hit it to them. It’s a rebuilding year, maybe two or three years. We’ve got to build up our pitching and the rest of it will fall in place.”