SARATOGA -- No. 1 West Valley baseball homered twice and had a handful of strong individual bullpen performances, but the Vikings (7-1) couldn't muster a comeback as they dropped their first game of the season to No. 23 Butte, 10-5.

Max Ghiglieri (0-1) got the start for the Vikings on the mound and struggled, lasting just 1.1 innings while walking four batters and allowing five earned runs. In the first, Butte's top two hitters reached on walks before a wild pitch moved them to second and third. Jacob Klapper flew out to center to score Butte's first run of the game.

The Roadrunners (6-5) continued from there, as a wild pitch and a single punched home two more runs. Still, the Vikings felt as if they were still in the ballgame, as they had come back from down eight runs in the series opener. That belief was only heightened after the first inning when, with two outs, Viking third baseman David Estrada crushed a home run to right for his first of the season.

For Estrada, the series was a terrific change-of-pace. He entered the weekend 2-of-15 without an extra base hit but raised his batting average over 100 points over the three-game set, going 5-for-11 with a double and a home run.

West Valley chipped into what was a four-run deficit in the bottom of the fourth inning. The Vikings loaded the bases with one out before Kenji Colston singled to score one and Anthony Rael, getting just his second start of the season, drove home a run to make it 5-3.

Butte proceeded to push the wind out of the Vikings' sails in the fifth, scoring four runs to push its lead back to six. After a quiet game two, Kolbey Stolpe drove in a pair of runs to open the frame before Jack Howsley's double scored him, and Daevion Lindsay's single scored Howsley.

The two teams traded zeroes for the next couple of innings before Parker Kristall, who had an RBI single earlier, punched his fourth home run of the season over the left field fence. Kristall also closed the game out for the Vikings, going two shutout innings while striking out a batter.

On a team still looking to sift out its roles in its pitching staff, Kristall has established himself as a premier back-end option, potentially one of the tops in the state. Over his three outings on the hill, Kristall has an otherworldly 10:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio over his 6.2 innings, allowing just two earned runs.

But the Vikings went hitless in the final two frames, closing out what was their best start to a season since at least the 2012 season. Now, a tough task is on the horizon, as the Vikings take on Chabot, which was ranked No. 22 in the preseason. First pitch on Tuesday set for 2:00 PM.