Overland Park ? Lawrence Outlaws coach Ryan Goodwin isn’t hardheaded. He just believes in his boys.

It doesn’t matter that Tuesday night the Outlaws suffered an 8-7 loss to the Shawnee Mission Lancers in their first game of the American Legion AAA Zone 1 Tourney.

“I really believe that we are the most talented team in this,” Goodwin said of the double-elimination tournament at the Blue Valley District Athletic Complex. “Offensively, we were solid tonight. We executed the bunting game, made some delayed steals and overall just did a good job at the plate. But pitching and defense win games, and we were sub-par in both those categories.”

Not entirely.

The Outlaws, who will play Olathe East at 8:15 tonight, played brilliantly in the field at times, but the game’s outcome turned in the final inning on a bobbled ball.

Holding a 7-6 lead in the top of the seventh, Outlaw pitcher Sheldon McGuire seemed to be getting out of a jam when a routine grounder bounced to first baseman Cameron Taylor.

Taylor juggled the ball, and Shawnee Mission’s Allen Miller beat the infielder to the bag to load the bases.

Then Lancers shortstop Jeffrey Winters quickly erased the fourth-seeded Outlaws’ chance of winning their Zone opener when he struck a single up the middle.

Not only did the game-tying run come around to score, but Lawrence third baseman Matt Lane became tangled with Lancers’ baserunner Matthew Miller.

Miller wasn’t trying to score but the umpire ruled interference on the play, and what proved to be the game-winning run crossed the plate.

“It’s really disappointing,” said Lawrence’s David Arndt. “But I’d much rather lose a game that way, and know that we were battling than get blown out.”

The Outlaws led for the majority of Tuesday’s contest, and they started solid.

Lawrence took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first when David Allen doubled and scored when Taylor smacked a hard ball up the middle that bounced off Winters’ glove.

McGuire who had won a third of the Outlaws’ games entering the tourney got out of jams in the second and fourth inning without allowing any runs. He wasn’t as fortunate in the third.

The Lancers scored twice after McGuire walked in runs with the bases loaded. Mission added two more to take a 4-1 lead.

Lawrence battled back, tying the game in the third and adding two more runs for a 6-4 lead in the fourth.

While the Lancers again answered in the fifth, so did Lawrence with a lead that would hold until the

seventh.

Then came the tough mistake with two outs, and a bottom half of the inning that featured the Outlaws retiring in order.

“We’re going to do this,” said a confident Goodwin of bouncing back with a win today. “They’ve battled back before.”

Indeed, the Outlaws have, even in under the same circumstances.

Last season about half of the Outlaws played for the Lawrence Bandits, who lost their first game in Zone action before winning five straight to advance to the state tournament.

“We’ve been in this situation before,” said Arndt, one of the players on that Bandits team. “We’ll have to play tough, and we don’t have any second chances, but we can do it.”

Shawnee Mission 8, Lawrence 7

Lancers 004 020 2 8 10 4

Raiders 103 210 0 7 12 3

W Brett Harrop. L Sheldon McGuire.

Outlaws Highlights: David Allen 2-4, 1 run; Cameron Taylor 1-4, 2 RBI, 1 run; David Arndt 1-2, 1 run, 1 RBI; Matt Lane 1-4 1 RBI; Daniel Dulin 1-3 2 runs.