The Kamloops Blazers' free-fall continued on Tuesday night with an 8-3 loss to the visiting Tri-City Americans.

"Obviously, there's no easy answers," interim head coach Scott Ferguson said after the game, in which his team was outshot 49-28.

"We just seemed to implode for five to seven minutes in each period. . . . It's not 15 minutes in a period, it's 20 minutes."

The Blue and Orange have now lost seven straight and eight of their last nine, dating back to their 12-5 Thanksgiving Monday loss at home to Medicine Hat.

In that time, they've been outscored 55-23.

The loss puts Kamloops under the .500-mark for the first time this season, one point ahead of the fourth-place Kelowna Rockets in the five-team B.C. Division.

The Blazers held their own through most of the first period against the Americans, despite the 2-1 score in favour of Tri-City after the opening frame — the Blazers lone marker coming from captain Tyler Shattock at 19:03.

But it didn't take long for the Americans to respond, regaining their two-goal lead less than a minute into the second period when Neal Prokup beat Justin Leclerc to make it a 3-1 game.

Two more quick goals made it 5-1 until Brett Lyon scored his first WHL goal midway through the second, getting a backhand past Americans goalie Drew Owsley after making a nice move in front of the Tri-City net.

The visitors answered back 62 seconds later, however, finding the back of the Kamloops net on a two-man advantage and taking a 6-2 lead into the second intermission.

Kamloops drew first blood in the third — Jake Trask from Brendan Ranford and Bronson Maschmeyer on the power play — but it wasn't enough.

Two more Tri-City goals made it an 8-3 final.

Local product Will Frolek, who is the Kamloops Storm's second-string netminder, was an emergency fill-in on the Kamloops bench Tuesday while Jon Groenheyde recovers from a wrist injury.

Groenheyde is expected to return to the line-up this weekend, when the Blazers host the Edmonton Oil Kings on Friday and Kelowna on Saturday.