The trouble with a young team is that it is prone to make mistakes and Northwood-Kensett softball coach Aaron Foster is trying to limit his team’s errors.

The Vikings have only four upperclassmen on the squad, two are seniors and two are juniors, and their inexperience appeared Monday in a 10-2 loss to Sheffield-Chapin-Meservey-Thornton at home.

“We had young mistakes,” Foster said. “Like you’re standing near third base and the ball is hit to you and instead of taking the force at third you’re throwing over to first.”

Those types of plays won’t show up in the box score but can cost a team runs and has led Northwood-Kensett to stumble out of the starting blocks.

The Vikings (0-8 overall) fell behind 6-0 after three innings and tried to rally by being aggressive on the basepaths.

“We’re really aggressive at baserunning,” Foster said. “I’d rather get thrown out at home than standing at third and losing by one.”

Senior center fielder Danielle Love swiped three bags and scored the first run for Northwood-Kensett on a passed ball after advancing to third on a passed ball.

Lauren Severson got the ball for the Vikings and went seven innings, allowing 10 runs on seven hits and struck out one as the Northwood-Kensett offense never came to life.

The Vikings offense struggled to find hits as they struck out 15 times and hit a number of pop-outs.

“Our bats have been pretty inconsistent,” Foster said. “Too many of them are dropping their shoulder and popping out. The last game we had close to 10 pop-outs.”

Northwood-Kensett did show signs of improvement by cutting down on fielding errors, making four in the game when they had been committing double that total in other games.

“Part of this is fundamentals,” Foster said. “We just have to get older as a team and get more experience.”

The Vikings dropped two games Saturday in the NIC/Corn Bowl Challenge tournament at Lake Mills.

Northwood-Kensett lost 8-2 to North Iowa (1-3 overall, 0-1 NIC) after being tied 1-1 after three innings.

The Bison broke the game open with a four-run fourth and followed that with a three-run fifth to cruise to a 8-2 win.

The Vikings grabbed only five hits in the game with Kjirsti Davidson responsible for two of them.

Severson pitched seven innings, allowing eight runs on seven hits while striking out four and walking four in the loss.

Northwood-Kensett then played a Garner-Hayfield (4-4 overall, 1-1 NIC) team that had just beaten a previously undefeated Central Springs team.

The Vikings were competitive but lost 9-6 when the Cardinals pushed three runs across the plate in the top of the seventh inning to preserve their lead.

Northwood-Kensett rallied back from being down 6-3 in the sixth to draw the game to 9-6 in the bottom of the seventh.

The Vikings pounded out nine hits in that game with Love collecting three hits and driving in two runs. Marissa Nitcher added two hits.

Nitcher took the mound for Northwood-Kensett and struck out five over seven innings while allowing nine runs on 10 hits.

Sheffield-Chapin-Meservey-Thornton 10, Northwood-Kensett 2

SCMT – 222 003 1 – 10 7 0

Northwood Kensett – 001 010 0 – 2 4 4

LP – Lauren Severson 7 IP, 7 H, 10 R, 1 K, 6 BB

North Iowa 8, Northwood-Kensett 2

North Iowa – 100 430 0 – 8 7 3

Northwood-Kensett – 001 010 0 – 2 5 5

WP – Becca Siemens 7 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 5 K, 1 BB

LP – Lauren Severson 7 IP, 7 H, 8 R, 4 K, 4 BB

Garner-Hayfield 9, Northwood-Kensett 6

Garner-Hayfield – 010 131 3 – 9 10 0

Northwood-Kensett – 100 002 3 – 6 9 0

WP – Jasmine Doble 7 IP, 9 H, 6 R, 2 K

LP – Marissa Nitcher 7 IP, 10 H, 9 R, 5 K, 5 BB