Little by little, Mike Szalat feels like he is seeing his St. Edmond baseball team come together.

While the end result was a tough 5-4 setback to Algona here Monday night at Rogers Park, Szalat believes the strides made are showing on the field.

Peyton Scott struck out 11 over six-plus innings, scattering seven hits with just two walks, but a pair of costly errors allowed the Bulldogs to plate the tying and game-winning runs in the seventh.

“We’re getting better,” Szalat said. “The improvements we’ve made in the past week are showing. We’ve still got things we need to clean up and things we need to get better at, but we’re getting there.”

Aaron Weringa, a senior for the Bulldogs, struck out eight over five-plus with Cameren Rindone coming on to seal the deal by getting two strikeouts in the seventh with runners on first and second for St. Edmond.

“It had that district final feel to the game with Peyton and Weringa battling,” Szalat said. “We just didn’t do our part to allow Peyton the chance to win it.”

Devon Wirtz was 2-for-3, Grant Heldorfer had a two-run triple in the sixth to give the Gaels a 4-3 lead, Scott reached base three times and Hayden Derrig twice. Joe Li was 2-for-4 with a run scored.

For Algona, Wyatt Streit drove in two runs and was 2-for-4 with a pair of triples, Tyler Manske had two hits, stole two bases, drove in a run and scored once, and Kyle Simpson had an RBI.

St. Edmond jumped on the Bulldogs in the first as Heldorfer walked, stole second and scored on a sacrifice by Derrig. Algona answered back with a Simpson RBI single in the second before taking a 3-1 lead in the sixth.

Manske drove in Tristin Larsen and Jensen Eischen plated Manske with a hit before Scott got out of it with his 10th strikeout. The SEHS senior struck out the side in the first and had at least one strikeout in all but one inning.

In the bottom of the sixth, Derrig reached on an error with Li and Emanuel Perry following with singles, as Perry’s hit scored Derrig. Heldorfer connected on a ball that rolled to the fence and brought in both Li and JT Laufersweiler, giving the Gaels a 4-3 advantage.

Streit, though, found a hole with a triple of his own in the seventh, plating Rindone and Noyln Hempel.

St. Edmond returns to action Tuesday night, hosting Pocahontas Area. Algona heads to Storm Lake Tuesday.