FRUITPORT – There’s no question that the Fruitport boys basketball team still has a lot of fight in it, despite its long losing streak.

The Trojans proved that by battling down to the wire in several very close games over the past few weeks.

But one simple fact remains for the largely inexperienced Trojans – they won’t start winning many games until they stop beating themselves.

That was obvious on Friday night when Fruitport kept the game close for a half, then fell to Spring Lake 58-37 in a home rivalry matchup.

Turnovers were a major headache for the Trojans. On a night when Spring Lake was missing its fair share of shots and coughing the ball up quite a bit itself, Fruitport piled up 13 turnovers, mostly on bad passes and other unforced errors.

The Trojans had five turnovers in the first half, which wasn’t too bad, but eight in the second, which decimated their chances to keep the game close.

“I think that’s been a problem for us for most of the season, even when we were winning a couple early games,” said Fruitport Coach Steve Erny. “They seemed like they came in those moments when the lead when from six to 12 and 12 to 15, and we were giving the ball back to them.

“I hate to say it, but we have some young guys who are still learning the varsity game. They are young and turning it over a lot. That hurt us tonight, for sure.”

Another big problem was an almost complete lack of offensive rebounding.

Basketball, particularly at the high school level, can be a game of second chances, but only if teams hit the boards after missed shots and put the ball back up.

The Trojans missed lots of shots, but according to one unofficial media count collected only two offensive rebounds. Most of the time the Lakers were there to clean up Fruitport’s misses and the Trojans were one shot and done on offense.

“That was something we tried to emphasize in the locker room (before the game),” Coach Erny said about offensive rebounds. “We were close to getting a few, but we had too many one-and-done possessions. It’s something we have to continue to work on.”

There were other problems as well, including the fact that two of Fruitport’s bigger scoring threats, Ryan Bosch and DayDay Williams, spent crucial minutes on the bench due to minor injuries (for both of them) and foul trouble (for Williams).

In the end, it all added up to Fruitport’s tenth straight loss. The Trojans are now 4-12 overall and 0-8 in O-K Blue conference play.

“I thought we did a pretty good job defensively tonight,” Erny said. “It was 23-17 at halftime and they were still in the low 50s until near the end. That should have put us in a position to win, but we only scored 37 points.”

The game started out pretty exciting for the big crowd of Trojan fans who showed up for the rivalry game.

The Trojans led for much of the first quarter and had a 12-11 edge at the first break.

Grade Anspach had two triples in the first, Bosch added four points and Williams had two.

But Spring Lake opened the second quarter with back-to-back three-pointers, outscored the Trojans 12-5 and went into halftime with a 23-17 lead.

The Lakers had a 13-6 edge in the third quarter to take a 36-23 lead into the fourth, then cruised to the conference victory.

Bosch finished with 14 points while Anspach added nine on three triples.

Eli Morrison and Colin Burt had 17 and 16 points, respectively, for Spring Lake, which improved to 9-7 overall and 4-4 in conference play.

Fruitport will host Holland Christian on Tuesday.