Boys basketball (1-5) continued their win drought with losses in home opener to Pattonville (4-1) and a close overtime game against Francis Howell. They dropped the contest 63-48 in a game where efficiency was the biggest downfall.

The team had 19 turnovers to Pattonville’s seven. In addition, this was another game where the field goal percentage wasn’t spectacular, being 37.8 percent in this game.

The Lancers were able to keep up with Pattonville early on, and only trailed 13-10 at the end of the first quarter. they were never able to recover, only outscoring the Pirates in the third quarter by two points. and being outscored the other three. Jake Messer lead the team in scoring with 17 points, going 5-10 from three-point range. Unfortunately, many of the Lancers’ struggles were from three, as the team only went 1-14 outside of Messer.

“Honestly, we’ve gotta push each other harder in practice. I think we sometimes take it easy on each other in practice. We still have new guys, we’re still coming together, and I think we’ll figure it out eventually,” Kory Brubaker said.

The game against Francis Howell was another heartbreaking loss, losing 48-46 in overtime. The team improved on their field goal percentage, going from 37.8 to 43.6, but still had many turnovers. The Lancers also had a rough night from three, shooting under 25 percent as a team.

Closing these close games have been a struggle for the Lancers, and they have many ways to fix that.

Brubaker said, “(We need to) definitely make free throws and take care of the ball We have more turnovers than assists and our free throw percentage is bad. During games like the one against Howell, in overtime we missed five free throws”

The next game is at Lindenwood University against Holt. Holt (1-5) is another struggling team, but one that the Lancers look to end their drought against. The game is on Dec. 17 at 7 p.m.