One month into its season, Lake Travis (25-2) is no longer ranked No. 1 and is coming off a tournament in which it finished sixth.

It doesn’t sound good, but it’s important to know a few other things. The two most important being that the two losses came at the hands of then-4A No. 2 Richardson Pearce and 3A No. 1 Lucas Lovejoy, and that the Lady Cavaliers took sixth out of 76 at the prestigious Pearland Invitational.

Both losses came on the final day of the tournament, but one was clearly more upsetting than the other.

With game one already secured, the Lady Cavaliers lost a 22-17 lead in the second game of its match against Pearce and never fully recovered. At the end, Lake Travis was stunned.

“For a moment, it kind of felt like the world ended,” Lake Travis head coach Julie Green laughed three days later. “But I think we’re OK now. We’re going to take whatever we’re given and make the very best of it. If we had won this weekend, that would have been great and we would have built off of it. But we didn’t. We had some weaknesses exposed, which I think we knew we had, but we needed to play the best competition to really see what they were.”

Which is exactly the kind of competition they faced. Lake Travis beat Plano, 4A No. 9 Alamo Heights, Clear Creek, Atascocita, 5A No. 11 The Woodlands and 5A No. 5 Grapevine.

“It’s not as if we lost to bad teams,” Green said. “We played a lot of extremely good teams and won most of our games.”

That leaves plenty of confidence to help build off of the two tough losses.

“We did not, in my opinion, finish the Pearce game,” Green said. “They caught us from behind and we deflated, and I felt like that carried over to the Lovejoy game.”

Effort may have been a bigger culprit than talent, despite the fact that Lake Travis was playing out of its most comfortable and formidable rotation due to middle Claire McCown still recovering from an ankle injury. That forced Jade Van Streepen to the middle from the outside, and weakened the team’s depth to some degree, but not necessarily its skill on the court. According to Green, Van Streepen performed admirably considering the situation and it gives her confidence that the team will be even stronger than it was before when it’s back at full strength.

“We played with a different rotation with Jade at middle, and it actually went great,” Green said. “We didn’t play great against McNeil on Tuesday, so I was a little concerned, but on Thursday and Friday, we really played well.”

That mans even though the losses last weekend were tough to stomach, there are still a number of reasons to be optimistic about the future. It allows the team to now look at the losses objectively and figure out what the problems were.

“I think at this point, we’re good. Right after the first loss, it was extremely disappointing because we all expected better,” Green said. “We got stuck in one rotation for eight points in the second game of the Pearce match and that should never happen under any circumstances. We’re so much better than that. It was a combination of things that took us from a 22-17 lead to a 25-22 loss.”

The problems were less technical in the Lovejoy loss.

“In the Lovejoy game, our body language, communication and intangibles were all lacking,” Green said. “Those things matter, especially against the best teams. We’re dead-set that that won’t happen again. If someone’s going to beat us, it’s going to be about their skills being better.”

That revelation is the reason the wins are that much easier to stomach now – the season isn’t over because of them.

“I would rather lose to Pearce in August than lose to them in November,” Green said. “Now, I can push to make adjustments, whereas in November I wouldn’t get a second shot. Pearce was really good, had a big lefty and ran some offensive combinations that we haven’t seen, and we made great adjustments to compete and be up 22-17 in the first place. We’re going to take all of the good from it and make more adjustments. I want our best to beat the best, and that means tweaking a few things so that we’re a little more balanced.”

They’re also gaining some perspective early on in the season, and are thankful to have played in such a large tournament.

“It’s funny to be disappointed about this result after what we’ve been through the last two years,” Green said. “It’s crazy to be disappointed that the No. 2 team in the state beat you. The tournament was incredible. You’re never going to get that level of competition anywhere else. It’s the best preparation because you never get to take a game off.”

For their efforts, Mackenzie Mayo, Sierra Patrick and Amy Neal were named to the all-tournament team, a sign of how much respect the Lady Cavaliers garnered despite not finishing in the top four of the tournament.

Now, the schedule eases up a bit with one more big test at Waco Midway this Friday. Midway is No. 13 in 4A and has played Lake Travis tough in two matches this season even though the Lady Cavaliers have eventually won both.

“We’re going to use the losses to push us because we didn’t get beat on skill when we lost,” Green said. “At least it didn’t look that way to me because I don’t think we were locked in.”

They’ll have the next 45 days to lock in before the playoffs start.