Kansas City, Kan. ? The Lawrence Raiders American Legion baseball team dropped its opening game of the MidAmerica tournament, 9-3, to the Shawnee Mission East Lancers, Friday at Kansas City Kansas Community College.

The Raiders led after five innings, 3-2, but the Lancers scored twice in the sixth and pushed five across in the seventh to put the game away.

Lawrence was short-handed, only competing with nine players. Raiders coach Brad Romme said he was pleased that the nine players all got good innings under their belt, but noted, “we’re still ironing out some kinks.”

Ryan Cantrell paced the Raiders’ offense, knocking in two of the team’s three runs.

Nolan Prochaska tossed six innings in the loss.

The Raiders (0-3) play two mores games in the tournament today. They take on KCSC Blaze Blue at 12:30 p.m. at Rockhurst University, before playing A-Game Baseball at 5:30 at MidAmerica Nazarene University.

SM East Lancers 9, Lawrence Raiders 3

Lancers 200 002 5 — 9 9 0

Raiders 002 100 0 — 3 3 2

L — Nolan Prochaska (0-1).

2B — Zak McAlister, Lawrence.