Brad Stoll wanted to avert his eyes during the horrendous frame.

“The third inning,” Lawrence High baseball coach Stoll said, “was honestly hard to watch.”

Kansas City (Mo.) Rockhurst took advantage of three errors and dropped a seven-spot on the Lions in the decisive third inning to post an 11-9 victory in the River City Festival on Thursday afternoon at Ice Field.

“That was uncharacteristic of the way Lawrence High baseball should be,” Stoll said.

The Lions had grabbed a 3-2 lead in the bottom of the second on Nick Madl’s RBI single and a two-run double by Mike Sickinger, but the wheels were about to fall off.

Rockhurst third baseman Kelly Quirk, son of former major leaguer Jamie Quirk, began the decisive frame with a triple and ended it with a fly ball to left. In between, in addition to the three LHS errors, the Hawklets stroked four more hits, stole three bases and had a hit batter.

Two of the errors occurred on one play and allowed the Hawklets to clear the bases without a hit. Third baseman John Novotny booted a grounder with the bases loaded, and catcher Brett Sims compounded the gaffe by throwing wild to third in a vain attempt to nail a Rockhurst runner.

When the inning finally ended on Quirk’s fly to left, Rockhurst enjoyed a 9-3 advantage. But Lawrence High didn’t check it in. Starting pitcher Matt Wingert settled down, and the Lions began chipping away.

“Matt showed some serious heart tonight,” Stoll said. “He didn’t let that bad inning get him down, and he got better as the game went on.”

Lawrence High pitcher Matt Wingert throws a pitch against Kansas City (Mo.) Rockhurst High. The Lions fell in their River City Baseball Festival game, 11-9, Thursday night at Ice Field.

In the bottom of the seventh, lagging 11-8, the Lions had the tying run at first and the winning run at the plate, but couldn’t capitalize.

Rockhurst reliever Brian Baca hit Brian Heere to start the seventh, then surrendered a double to designated hitter Matt Falk — his second two-bagger and third hit of the game.

Hawklets’ skipper Jim DeGraw hooked Baca at that point, replacing him with right-hander Michael Cotter who promptly walked clean-up hitter Marc Albers to fill the sacks.

That brought left-handed hitting Will Falk to the plate.

“Will had good swings all day, and he’s one of the guys we want at the plate in that situation,” Stoll said.

Falk did get a good swing against the Rockhurst reliever, but he was just under it and his high drive near the center-field fence went for a sacrifice fly.

Moments later, with the tying runs on base, Tyler Knight popped to Cotter, and the Lions’ record dipped to 5-7 despite an 11-hit attack that included six doubles.

6Sports video: Lions fall to Hawklets Photo: Lions fall, 11-9

“The guys they ran at us were good pitchers,” Stoll said. “We hit pretty good, but we couldn’t play defense in the third to save our lives.”

Lawrence’s next Festival game is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. today at Hoglund Ballpark against Ozark, Mo.