PORTSMOUTH — St. Joseph Flyers coach Greg Bryant can see a silver lining in his team’s cloud. He hopes to see more good things, too.

Although the score didn’t indicate it, the Flyers played better but still lost 14-3 to the Portsmouth Clay Panthers Thursday.

The Flyers had four errors and left runners stranded in every inning including three bases loaded situations.

“It was a case of walks, errors, and a lack of timely hitting,” said Bryant. “I’m seeing more positives, but we just have to put things together. We used a lot of energy (Wednesday night). We just couldn’t get a big hit early.”

The Flyers went up 1-0 in the top of the first inning.

Payton Blair walked, went to second on Pat Gagai’s a sacrifice bunt, moved up on a ground out and scored on Caleb Blackburn’s base hit.

But Clay scored four runs in the bottom of the inning and it was 4-1. The Panthers followed up with five runs in the second to lead 9-1.

St. Joseph got a run back in the third inning when Harvey walked, stole second, moved to third on a hit by Blackburn, and scored when Jerrod Laber reached on an error.

However, Clay got four more runs in the third inning and the lead was 13-2.

The final Flyers run scored in the fourth inning.

Aaron Murphy walked passed ball, ground out by Anthony Whaley had came home on a Crossan’s base hit.

St. Joseph10110=354

Ports. Clay4541x=1483

Chad Harvey, Pat Gagai (2), Levi Hopkins (3), David Crossan (3) and Pat Gagai, Dylan Klein (2). Burchett, Blanton (5) and Parker. W-Burchett. L-Harvey. HR-Clay: Parker. Hitting-St. Joseph: Chad Harvey 1-2, Caleb Blackburn 2-3, Joey Basedow 1-1, David Crossan 1-2; Clay: Kirkpatrick 1-3, Parker 3-3, Puckett 1-2, Ratcliff 2-3, Burchett 1-2.