Raiders catcher Langston Bush stops a run at the plate during the Raiders' game against KC Elite during their game Saturday afternoon at Free State High.

It was a different day, but the same story for the Lawrence Raiders youth baseball team on Saturday afternoon.

The Raiders had an early lead against KC Elite in the MB Tournament at Free State High, but a few big innings cost them in a 8-4 setback.

As they’ve struggled to prevent opposing teams from starting rallies, the Raiders have lost eight straight games.

“It seems like every game we’re in it until the last few innings, and then they just kind of pull away from us,” Lawrence’s Doug Easum said. “Just one bad inning always kills us.”

The Raiders (10-26) took a 2-0 lead in the first inning after Ryan Cantrell drew a one-out walk and Drew Green hit a ground-rule double to left, and they both scored on a double into right-center from Jacob Seratte.

However, KC Elite answered with two runs in the third inning. A miscommunication in shallow center field allowed the ball to drop in for a single, and an infield single on a bunt let the first two batters reach base, and they both scored on a triple to deep center.

In the fourth, KC Elite added three runs after the first three batters reached to load the bases and scored on two singles and a sacrifice fly.

The Raiders got one run back in the fifth inning after Zak McAlister hit a leadoff double and advanced to third on an error before scoring on a sacrifice fly from Briggs Fish. They had chances to add more runs in the second and fourth innings with runners in scoring positions, but line drives from Nolan Prochaska and Langston Bush were caught to end the threats.

KC Elite scored three more runs in the fifth and sixth innings before the Raiders scored their final run in the seventh with a RBI double from Easum, bringing home Zach Bickling, who hit a leadoff single.

“Today I will tell you, at the plate, I was — I don’t know what it was, if they were relaxed or whatnot — but this was the best approaches they’ve put back-to-back-to-back I’ve seen in a long time this summer,” Raiders coach Brad Romme said. “Very pleased with that. Not to sound cliché, we’re just going to keep chugging along and try to get one (win) tomorrow.”

The Raiders will play their final game of the summer at 1:30 p.m. today against Mac-N-Seitz at FSHS.

Raiders 200 010 1 — 4 6 2

KC Elite 002 321 x — 8 12 1

L — Briggs Fish.

2B — Drew Green, Jacob Seratte, Zak McAlister, Doug Easum.

Raiders highlights — Green, 1-for-3, run; Seratte, 1-for-3, 2 RBI; Zach Bickling, 2-for-3, run; Easum, 1-for-3, RBI.