LAGRANGE — Wawasee’s coaching staff knew exactly what to focus on in their game at Lakeland Tuesday night. Unfortunately, that knowledge didn’t sway the outcome.

The very things Matt Carpenter and company circled on the board before the game — namely, turnovers and rebounding — turned out to be the very bugaboos that cost the Lady Warriors the game in a 54-34 defeat on the road.

“We talked about before the game that our key was more field goal attempts, and what we talked a

bout at that point was minimizing our turnovers and minimizing their offensive rebounds, and those are the exact things that came back and killed us,” explained Carpenter.

All told, the Warriors surrendered 27 turnovers against the Lakers’ swarming man-to-man full court pressure, and the hosts capitalized with 16 points off those miscues. Wawasee cut those turnovers by more than half in the second half — from 19 to eight — but already trailed 30-15 at the intermission. Lakeland also finished the night with a total of 20 offensive rebounds, more than making up for the diminished turnover numbers over the final two frames with 15 second half offensive caroms, pushing the advantage out to more than 20 points with over six minutes remaining in the game.

“The reason that some of that stuff killed us were twofold. Because, one, we didn’t handle the pace — we let them set the tempo and we were frantic offensively — and, two, we spent the whole second quarter playing transition defense from our turnovers and our quick shots. When you do that, your legs go, you’re not in position to rebound. We know we’re going to have a challenge with our height, but that’s not excuse for not doing the things we’re capable of,” Carpenter said.

While Lakeland’s full court press gave the hosts some extra possessions, it also flustered their guests into taking some hurried shots in the half court, and the Warriors finished just 10 of 44 from the floor compared to a 21-of-56 mark by the Lakers. Lakeland hounded Wawasee leading scorer Casey Schroeder in particular, and the senior combo guard never got much space in the contest, finishing with a team co-high eight points earned mostly from the foul line and the perimeter. Sophomore guard Danielle Jenkins matched her with eight points of her own but needed 17 shots to get there.

“Let’s give Lakeland credit — this is a team that’s gotten a lot better in the last year or two. They’ve got nice athleticism, they’ve got length, and that bothered us tonight and we let it bother us. Casey is going to go against teams that know that, hey, we’ve got to slow down Schroeder right now if we’re going to beat Wawasee, and they did a great job of that tonight. They put two or three people on her all the time, and right now our team is looking to her instead of looking together to figure out how we’re going to figure this out together. That’s the growing we have to do together,” said Carpenter.

Lakeland was paced by athletic sophomore swing Bailey Hartsough, meanwhile, with a game-high 21 points to go with eight rebounds. Sophomore reserve Keirstin Roose gave her team a spark off the bench with 11 points and six caroms as the Lakers moved to 2-1.

Wawasee dips to 2-3 with its second straight loss. The Warriors play at Triton on Saturday night at 7:30 p.m.

Meanwhile Tuesday, Wawasee’s junior varsity earned a 33-23 win. Becca Smith scored 12, and Tate Cowan chipped in nine for the JV Warriors, who used an 11-4 second quarter to grab a 20-8 halftime cushion.