The heavy part of the Ironclad Conference basketball schedule began this week, and only one of the two boys’ teams playing at Lakeland High School on Tuesday evening appeared completely up to the task.

Visiting Heritage High School topped the host Cavaliers by a score of 69-53.

“I thought that mentally, we just weren’t in it,” Lakeland coach Clint Wright said. “We knew we had a scheduled game tonight, and we showed up because the game was scheduled.”

He noted the Cavaliers again played in spurts and took responsibility for their lack of preparation.

But the Hurricanes were not unknown to the Cavs, and Wright made some efforts to get Lakeland ready for what they do.

“We’d seen them at the Scope twice, we saw them at their place,” Wright said. “I knew that they had phenomenal guard play, I knew that they do a lot of dribble drives, and they make the extra pass, and we attempted to simulate that in practice.”

His players seemed to respond fairly well, he said.

“I attempted to re-emphasize, ‘Hey, we’ve got to make sure we hedge on screens, we’ve got to cut off the baseline,’ and we shared those things in great detail, but there was lack of execution,” he said. “I don’t know if it was the way we prepared them or attempted to prepare, but it didn’t work on tonight.”

Heritage was one of the teams participating in the Scope Holiday Invitational Basketball Tournament along with Lakeland. The Hurricanes went 0-3 in the event, including two overtime losses, one of which came at the hands of Indian River High School, a team the Cavs — 1-2 at the Scope — have defeated twice this season by an average margin of 14.5 points.

“You do the math, theoretically, you’re supposed to be able to be successful,” Wright said, referring to Tuesday’s Heritage game, but he noted conference play brings with it something different. “There’s a different level of intensity; Heritage matched that level of intensity on tonight.”

Lakeland senior forward Larry Everret had 11 points and six rebounds, junior forward Deonta Knight had nine points and 12 boards and senior guard Kenya Latham had nine points and three assists.

Wright took one positive from the night.

“This was not the Lakeland basketball that I’ve grown accustomed to over the last couple of years, even over the last week, so I know that we can play a lot better,” he said.

The Cavaliers lost to Heritage twice last season.

“My goal is to beat them at least one time before the year is out,” Wright said.

Lakeland (7-7, 1-2) visits Phoebus High School on Friday. The next day, the Cavs participate in the Bulldog Showcase at King’s Fork High School, where they will face the team that eliminated them from the regional playoffs last season — Booker T. Washington High School.