Lawrence High senior Michael Sinks (14) is congratulated by teammates after scoring the Lions' first run during the Lions' game against Olathe South Friday at LHS.

Lawrence High’s baseball players don’t celebrate moral victories. But they were proud of what they accomplished on Thursday.

The Lions trailed by five runs against Olathe South in the second inning and slowly chipped away. Down to their final out, they scored three runs to tie the score and send the game into extras before losing, 10-9, in eight innings at LHS.

Trailing 8-5 with two outs and one runner on base in the bottom of the seventh, senior shortstop Michael Sinks drilled a ground-rule double to the left-center gap to score junior Daonte Lowery. Next up was senior Zak McAlister, who was previously 0-for-3 with two groundouts and a strikeout.

McAlister was just looking for anything to hit after watching the first pitch paint the outside corner for a strike. Once he saw a fastball down the middle, he smashed a game-tying two-run home run over the left-field fence into the netting which protects the cars in the parking lot.

“Honestly, that was probably my favorite sports moment,” McAlister said. “It was really exciting.”

Sinks added: “It couldn’t have happened to a better guy. He’s always working his butt off.”

In the eighth inning, the Falcons (6-5) scored two runs when junior catcher Carson Green hit a ball down the third base line with the bases loaded and it bounced off of a glove into foul territory. The Lions picked up a run of their own in the bottom half of the inning, but couldn’t rally once more.

“In a way, it was good that we finally fought a whole game,” McAlister said. “But losing in the end is losing. We’ll come back tomorrow and keep working.”

The Falcons drilled the ball in the first few innings against LHS starter Nick Haynes, who left a few pitches up in the strike zone, including a two-run home run from junior Brian Sullivan in the first inning.

“That’s probably one of the more physical offensive teams in our conference,” LHS coach Brad Stoll said. “It was like (boxer Manny) Pacquiao and (Floyd) Mayweather, or actually probably what it would feel like to fight both those guys. They just came out and squared us up often.”

The Lions started cutting into their deficit in the second inning when sophomore first baseman Jacob Unruh hit a RBI double, scoring Sinks. In the third inning, Sinks hit a two-run double to center field, scoring Lowery and senior Nate Hulse. Lowery pitched four innings in relief, allowing just one earned run.

“I was trying to do too much at the beginning of the year,” said Sinks, who went 3-for-4 with three RBIs. “My coaches, family, friends and everybody told me that but I wasn’t really noticing it. Once I started swinging a little bit easier and just trying to have fun and play the game, everything started falling into place.”

In the fourth inning, Olathe South nearly added to its lead, but McAlister ran down a double in the left-center gap and tossed a relay throw to Sinks, who fired to the plate, and junior catcher Ivan Hollins applied the tag in front of a sliding runner.

LHS added two runs in the fifth inning with a two-run single by junior second baseman Brad Kincaid.

The Lions, who dropped to 2-7, have lost five games by two runs or less this season.

“Shoot, man, I couldn’t be any prouder of these guys to come back and do what they did,” Stoll said. “There’s a lot of things that we’re doing right now that I’m really pleased with. There’s just some things that we need to do to win those games. We’re knocking on the door.”

The Lions will travel to Shawnee Mission East at 4:30 p.m. Monday.

O-South 411 001 12 — 10 16 0

Lawrence 012 020 31 — 9 10 3

W — Brian Sullivan. L — Brad Kincaid.

2B — Noah Croft, Sullivan, O-South; Jacob Unruh, Michael Sinks (2), LHS. HR — Sullivan, O-South; Zak McAlister, LHS.

LHS highlights: Daonte Lowery, 4 IP, 6 H, 1 ER, 2-for-4, 3 runs; Kincaid, 1-for-4, 2 RBIs; Sinks, 3-for-4, 3 RBIs, 2 runs; McAlister, 1-for-4, 2 RBIs.