the lawrence raiders’ Bryan Kindle gets a face full of baseball during the Raiders’ 4-3 victory over the K.C. Bullets on Friday night at Hoglund Ballpark.

By now, Lawrence Raiders utility man Austin Holladay is used to all of this hero stuff.

No stranger to pressure-filled situations — as a member of the Free State High team this spring, Holladay hit a game-winning three-run home run to keep the Firebirds’ Sunflower League title hopes alive — the senior-to-be added to his resume when he entered Friday’s game against the K.C. Bullets — a 4-3 Raiders victory — as a relief pitcher.

The situation: Bottom of the seventh inning. Two outs. Bases loaded. The opponent’s No. 4 hitter — Nick Doughty, who earlier in the game hit a two-run triple — at the plate and the Raiders clinging to a one-run lead.

Nerves? Nah.

“That’s the situation,” said Holladay, who entered in relief and faced just one batter, “that everybody imagines themselves being in.”

Maybe so, but rarely does the situation include falling behind in the count 3-0, which is precisely what Holladay did Friday.

In the end, however, he managed to calm himself enough to throw three consecutive strikes, the third of which Doughty whiffed to give the Raiders their first victory of the Al Ice Woodbat Classic.

“There’s a lot of pressure right there,” said Raiders coach Wilson Kilmer, whose team improved to 1-1 in the tournament. “It got to 3-0, but he kept his composure and finished things off for us.”

Holladay’s six-pitch outing put the finishing touches on a strong performance from starter Taylor Gentry. Following a shaky first inning, when he allowed two runs on a triple by Doughty, Gentry settled down to give up just one run on two hits the rest of the way.

A day after committing four errors and managing just two runs in a tournament-opening loss to Willard (Mo.), the Raiders rebounded with a much better performance defensively while coming up with the kind of timely hitting that has at times eluded them this summer.

After falling behind 3-0 in the third inning, the Raiders battled back to score two runs each in the third and fourth innings. Jack Bush doubled to score two runs in the bottom of the third, and an inning later, Bryan Kindle’s single with the bases loaded scored Matthew Abel and Travis Sanders to give the Raiders a 4-3 lead.

“The bats started up tonight,” said Gentry. “We made some good adjustments at the plate and just did our jobs.”

Bush and Kindle finished with two RBIs apiece, and Sanders finished 2-for-4 with two runs scored for the Raiders.