BROOKINGS — The Brookings boys’ basketball team was unable to pick up their first win on Tuesday night, but the Bobcats did make some strides as they lost to O’Gorman 66-56.

Brookings took on Tea Area on Monday night and the Bobcats lost 68-38. Bobcat head coach Mike McCarty said he was much more pleased with the way his team competed on Tuesday night.

“I felt we competed both nights, but I felt like tonight we had that energy and effort that we needed for an entire 32 minutes. There were just a few turnovers that made the game more than a couple possessions and it was tough to come back. But the way we competed from start to finish, I was very proud of that,” McCarty said.

The two teams battled early and it was 12-12 with 1:43 left in the first quarter. The battle would continue the rest of the quarter and a Jackson Bjorkman 3-pointer at the buzzer put the Knights up 19-18 heading into the second.

O’Gorman opened the second quarter with a 6-0 run. The Knights then led 27-21 with 5:20 to play in the half and would outscore the Bobcats 7-1 the rest of the half and led 34-22 at halftime.

That lead held for most of the rest of the game. The Bobcats outscored the Knights 12-11 in the third quarter but that meant OG still had a 45-34 lead heading into the fourth. The closest the Bobcats got in the fourth was eight points five minutes to play but then the Knights scored five-straight points to go up 58-45 with 3:10 to play and that was all she wrote.

Brookings had 24 turnovers that led to 24 O’Gorman points. McCarty said taking care of the ball is the number one thing that the Bobcats have to work on.

“I think it’s something that we can work on, and we’ll continue to do that. We’ve been working on it, but obviously we have some room to improve on that. We’ll keep at it and it’s something that we can do a little bit. But it’s also something where you have to give the other team credit too. We’ve played some good teams the past couple nights and they’ve forced some of them, but we’ve also had some unforced turnovers too,” McCarty said.

Brookings shot 50% from the field and was 10-of-21 from three. Drew Johnson had a big night for the Bobcats as he had 22 points and was 6-of-7 three. Bergan Tetzlaff had a double-double with 14 points and 10 rebounds. Brodie McCarty had 13 points.

McCarty said he liked the way his offense played in the half court despite the turnovers.

“I thought we did some good things on the offensive end. We made some shots on the outside, but also got the ball inside as well and made their defense collapse. Then on kickouts we were able to make some shots and we’re going to need that every night because every opponent that we play is going to be a challenge,” McCarty said.

O’Gorman shot 46.4% from the field and was 3-of-20 from beyond the arc. Bjorkman led the Knights with 18 points and nine rebounds. Austin Terveen had 13 points and Nyun Dut had 10 points.

The Bobcats have given up over 60 points in each of their five losses. McCarty said that is going to need to change if they want to win some games.

“It has to start on the defensive end. We have to be able to string a few more stops together if we want to start winning these games. Most of our opponents have been in the mid 60’s to upper 70’s, so if we can get some more stops and keep teams in the 50’s or even the 40’s [it would help]. On the defensive end, that’s where we need to step up more and I thought we made some good strides with that tonight,” McCarty said.

The Knights had a 30-25 advantage in rebounds. O’Gorman had 12 turnovers. The Bobcats were 8-of-17 at the free throw line and the Knights were 11-of-15.

Brookings will hit the road next as the Bobcats play at Brandon Valley on Friday night. Tip off between the Bobcats and Lynx is scheduled for 7 p.m.