Every loss is hard to stomach, but when Warren Central fell 10-5 to Clinton on Thursday night, it didn’t signal heartbreak or hopelessness. More than anything, it showed a team that has steadily improved all year could be on the verge of breaking out of a slump for the last stretch of the season.

“We still came up short, but we played better,” Warren Central coach Dana McGivney said. “Hit the ball a lot better tonight, and defensively made some better plays. Obviously disappointed when we lose, but played them better than we did last time, so you have you to look at that as a positive.”

Warren Central had lost 8-0 to Clinton two weeks, and has now dropped six of its last seven games. The five runs it scored, however, were the second-most it has scored in that stretch. The Lady Vikes drubbed hapless Greenville 24-0 on March 20.

Clinton (5-9, 3-0 Division 4-6A) beat Warren Central (7-9, 2-2) for the 18th consecutive time, a streak that dates back to 2010. Because of the earlier loss, Warren Central would have had to win by at least nine runs on Thursday to win the division title. It still has qualified for the Class 6A playoffs.

The game was quiet until the third inning, when Clinton took a 3-0 lead. The Lady Vikes responded well, with a Kelsey Lockridge bunt turning into an RBI double that put Warren Central on the board. Clinton walked the next batter, loading the bases to try and set up a double play, but instead April Lynn smacked the ball hard to right field for a bases-clearing triple.

Lynn came home on the next play when Laura Reagan Logue singled to center field, and the inning ended with Warren Central leading 5-3.

The Lady Vikes had been slumping at the plate for the last few games, and what broke them out of it was bunting. Kaitlyn Mitchell, Kaylee Hoeft, and Lockridge all laid down bunts to set up the big inning.

“We’ve been working on them all season, and we just hadn’t been able to get them down when we needed to. Tonight we finally were able to, so it was definitely a big plus,” McGivney said.

Unfortunately for the Lady Vikes, they were not able to replicate their success in the ensuing innings. They were held scoreless for the remainder of the game. Meanwhile, a big four-run fourth inning for Clinton allowed it to retake the lead, and three more runs in the sixth put the game away.

Lynn’s three RBIs led the Lady Vikes, with Lockridge and Logue both notching two hits and one RBI each.

On the mound, Hoeft gave up nine hits and four earned runs in 3 1/3 innings, Brianna Daughtry gave up three earned runs and three hits in two innings, and Annalyn Nevels gave up two hits and no runs in 1 2/3 innings.

The Lady Vikes committed four errors, but also had some highlight-quality plays on defense, such as a diving grab and quick throw to first by shortstop Cocoa Fultz.

“I love defense, and when we make good plays I get super pumped. Any time we play solid defense, it makes me happy,” McGivney said. “We work hard on defense every day, and that’s something we pride ourselves on. The beginning, middle of the season, we’ve made a lot of errors, and our goal is every day to come out and make fewer errors, and I think we’re on the path to doing that. We have a couple of more weeks before the playoffs that we’re just going to hopefully keep improving.”

Overall, McGivney said the way the Lady Vikes played in the loss said a lot about their toughness.

“It says we don’t just put or heads down and quit just because a team has beat us once,” McGivney said. “We come back and we fight, and that’s all you can ask every game, you just want them to fight and give 100 percent.”