WEBSTER CITY – Mark Fisher is realistic when it comes to his young, but promising Webster City baseball team. He accepts that there will be nights where his players perform and others where they will struggle.

And Friday night happened to be one of those struggles at Lynx Field.

Coming off back-to-back 10-run victories, WCHS looked shaky early and never really improved in a 5-2 setback against North Central Conference rival Fort Dodge St. Edmond.

The contest was in the top of the seventh inning when torrential rain turned the diamond into a quagmire. The game went in the books as a six-inning loss for the Lynx (2-2, 1-1 NCC).

The Gaels (4-1, 1-1 NCC) managed just four hits off WCHS starting pitcher Dylan Steen and reliever Ty Schnathorst, but the duo also walked five, hit one batter and threw six wild pitches. The threw strikes on just 54 percent of their pitches.

“In all honesty, this was an inevitable step back for a young team,” Fisher, the Lynx head coach, said. “We talked about continuing to improve and get better each day, (but) we had a pretty flat practice (on Thursday) and came out extremely flat (on Friday).

“(The pitchers) got into too many long counts and simply just did not throw enough strikes.”

Steen went four innings and fanned six in a losing effort. Four of the runs were charged to him, but only two of them were earned. Schnathorst allowed one earned run. Bryan Ferrell was on the hill in the seventh when the game was called.

St. Edmond jumped in front with single runs in the second and third innings, plated two in the fifth and one in the sixth to push in front 5-0. WCHS answered with two in the bottom of the sixth.

Robert Flattery led the Gaels’ offense and earned the win on the bump. He went 2 for 3 at the dish with a RBI single in the third and a RBI double in the fifth. On the mound, he surrendered seven hits, but walked just one and struck out seven.

WCHS had plenty of chances to put runs on the board, but failed to capitalize on chances in both the first and second innings. Romel Martinez jumped on Flattery’s first pitch of the game and sent a rocket to the fence in left field for a stand-up double, but went no further. Cole Reigelsberger hit a bloop single and Corey Wagner followed two batters later with a double, but again both were left on the base paths in the second.

WCHS stranded five runners in the game, all of them in scoring position.

“Offensively we hit some balls hard again, but we made some mistakes on the bases that cost us a few runs and struggled to string together multiple big hits in an inning,” Fisher said. “We are just a young team right now that is still learning to win mentally.”

Martinez went 2 for 3 at the top of the Lynx order. He scored the team’s first run in the sixth on Flattery’s only wide pitch of the game. Max Hackbarth, who joined Martinez with a single in the sixth, scored a few moments later on a RBI ground-out off the bat of Steen.

Reigelsberger also finished with two hits. Ty Schnathorst joined Wagner and Hackbarth with one.

WCHS will look to rebound this evening when it heads to Algona to face the Bulldogs at 7:15 p.m.