photo by: Carter Gaskins

Lawrence High player Ethan Taylor (13) winds up for a pitch during the game against Olathe Northwest on Wednesday, April 4, 2018. Olathe Northwest beat LHS, 7-5.

At times, pitchers struggled finding the strike zone. Lawrence High’s baseball team committed five errors. And the Lions still found themselves with a chance to win in the final innings.

The Lions couldn’t overcome their slow start in a 7-5 loss at LHS on Wednesday, but brought the game-tying run to the plate in the sixth and seventh innings.

Despite dropping their record to 1-5, the Lions remain encouraged by their progress. Senior right-hander Ethan Taylor made his second appearance on the mound since undergoing arm surgery in May 2017.

Taylor only allowed one hit to the final eight batters he faced, allowing two runs (zero earned) in 4 1/3 innings. He added a two-run single in the bottom of the sixth inning, sparking the LHS offense to a four-run inning.

“Right now it’s just a mental game for me,” said Taylor who didn’t allow a ball out of the infield in the last two innings he pitched. “This is my second time throwing in more than two years to live batters. It’s all mental just trying to overcome it.”?

Taylor was among the team’s top starting pitchers during his sophomore season. He missed all of last year when his arm began to flare up, which required surgery to reattach a ligament in his elbow.

He graded Wednesday’s outing as a B-plus, a nice sign of progress after allowing six runs in his first appearance following his injury. It’s the type of injury that’s always on his mind, but he’s slowly gaining more confidence.

“It’s always thinking, ‘Oh, is my arm going to go bad again?'” Taylor said. “Is my stuff good enough? Am I throwing hard because my velocity before was really low but today I could feel it. It was up there.”

Lawrence coach Brad Stoll added: “I thought his breaking ball looked really sharp. (Catcher) Austin Quick was telling me that his two-seamer had a bit more run.”

In the bottom of the sixth inning, trailing 7-1 to Olathe Northwest, the Lions loaded the bases with no outs. Hank Dobson and Payton Cummins drew walks while Caleb Mondi was hit by a pitch.

That set up Taylor, who hit sparingly at the varsity level as a sophomore, for a two-run single he slapped into left field. After Reese Carmona drove in a run with a sacrifice fly, Devin Lauts added an RBI double into the right-center gap.

“Somebody had to do it,” Lauts said of his double after the Lions only recorded two hits in the first five innings. “We have roles. We had to score so I had to get my runner in. … That’s my job is to produce runs.”

The late-inning rally just couldn’t make up enough ground. The Ravens (4-2) scored at least one run in each of the first five innings, while the Lions stranded seven runners against Olathe Northwest starting pitcher Nick Hegarty.

Northwest 122 110 0 — 7 6 0

Lawrence 100 004 0 — 5 4 5

W — Nick Hegarty. L — Devin Lauts.

2B — Grant Howard, Nate Niceswanger, ONW; Lauts, LHS.

LHS highlights — Hank Dobson, 4 walks, RBI, run; Ethan Taylor, 1 for 2, 2 RBI, 4.1 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 2 BB, 2 K; Devin Lauts 2 for 4, RBI.