Brock Dowell is looking forward to some practice time with his Shakamak High School basketball team.

The Lady Lakers opened the season with four games in five days, including two on Saturday at the North Putnam Tournament.

Shakamak lost 55-12 to Covenant Christian in the opener at North Putnam, and then 53-28 to Riverton Parke.

“We just need to continue to get a little better each day. Fortunately, this next week we don’t have four games, so we can spend more time practicing on the things we need to improve on,” Dowell said.

“It’s a long season and our goals are still very much in front of us.”

The Lady Lakers struggled on offense against Covenant Christian and didn’t score more than six points in any quarter. The Lady Warriors were able to take control in the opening quarter by outscoring Shakamak 25-4.

“Covenant Christian was the best team we’ve played up to this point. I thought we played timid on the offensive end and let their pressure cause us to panic at times in the half court,” Dowell explained.

“We had moments where we were able to generate some good looks, we just couldn’t do it consistently throughout the game.”

The Lady Lakers gave up 30 points the last three quarters but couldn’t recover from the slow start.

“Defensively, our rotations between our guards and our wings were a step slow tonight, but Covenant Christian did a good job of shifting our defense with their ball movement,” Dowell said.

Kaylee Calvert led Shakamak in scoring with eight points, and Mattilyn Hill added four.

Against Riverton Parke in the second game, Dowell said the Lady Panthers were able to turn Shakamak turnovers into points.

“(Against) Riverton Parke our rotations and stagnance on the offensive end I felt were the biggest difference in this game,” Dowell said. “Credit to Riverton Parke, they took advantage of both, knocking down shots and turning our turnovers into points.”

Th Lady Lakers fell behind 27-11 by halftime, but matched Riverton Parke with nine points in the third.

“In the second half, I thought we did a little bit better job at not letting the ball stick and as a result we were able to get cleaner looks,” Dowell said.

Hill led the Lady Lakers in scoring with 17 points. Kaylee Calvert added eight points, Annabelle Ehle had two, and Jacelyn Coffee contributed one.

The setback dropped Shakamak to 0-4 going into Tuesday’s home game with Seven Oaks. It will play another home game Saturday, Nov. 14 against Cloverdale.

Shakamak’s first four opponents have started the season with a 6-3 overall record.