It was an unceremonious ending to the season for the Northwood-Kensett softball team Wednesday night against WCLT in the first round of the district playoffs.

The Vikings were held hitless in a 10-0, five-inning loss to the No. 11-ranked team in Class A.

WCLT held a 2-0 lead heading into the fourth inning, but a combination of walks and errors added up to a 10-0 loss for Northwood-Kensett.

The Vikings gave up six walks in the final two innings and WCLT took advantage with three runs in the fourth and five in the fifth.

Although it was a disappointing finish for the team, Northwood-Kensett returns all but one player next year.

The 2009 season wasn’t a success in terms of wins, but the Vikings were a more competitive team than the previous season.

“We’re playing a higher caliber of softball,” said Northwood-Kensett head coach Aaron Foster. “We cut down the number of errors. We took care of that one bad inning. We just need to create less errors next year. If we can get our bats going in the offseason I think we’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

WCLT 10, N-K 0, 5 innings

N-K 000 00x x — 0 0 6

WCLT 020 35x x — 10 5 0

WP — Paige Heesch 7 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 7 K

LP — Maren Davidson 7 IP, 5 H, 10 R, 7 ER, 7 BB, 2 K