RALPH WILSON/Sun-Gazette Correspondent Lycoming's Ryan Pentz (22) snags an interception during a college football match up between Lycoming College and Dickinson College at David Person Field on Saturday.

Lycoming’s players and coaches know they have to tighten things up defensively and cut down on mistakes. It’s a big reason the Warriors enter today’s home game at David Persun Field at Girardi Stadium still searching for their first win after three straight losses this year.

While Lycoming hung with its first two opponents this year and lost by just three points in both those games, 27-24, last week’s loss was different vs. Davidson as the Red Devils won, 52-29.

“The turnovers are awful, the lack of poor tackling (is bad),” Lycoming coach Mike Clark said after last week’s loss. “We have to get (that) fixed. Those are things you just can’t have.”

Dickinson last week had seven possessions go for at least 50-plus yards, with all but one resulting in points on the board.

“We dropped — we’re 19 for 37 — we had to have had six drops. We had two bad interceptions,” Clark said of the offense last week.

But today is a new game, and Lycoming’s hoping to finally see a win as the Warriors host Rowan for a 1 p.m. kickoff. Rowan is 1-0-1 this year. After tying Case Western Reserve, 17-17, in a game which was suspended, the Roman Owls cruised past Moravian two weeks ago, 56-0.

That offense runs through a few play players. Tyshawn Bookman has 124 rushing yards in two games and teammate Mordecai Ford has 105. At quarterback, Nate Maiers has gone 20 for 30 in two games with 380 yards, five touchdowns and no interceptions.

Lycoming know defensively it will have to try to limit big plays by Maiers but also try to slow down the running game. Against Dickinson, the Red Devils moved the ball seemingly at will as Ben Klassen threw for 265 and Cedric Benning III ran for 174 yards, averaging 7.9 per carry, and Dane Sorenson had 131 yards with an outstanding 14.6 yards per carry average.

“We just have to keep the kids focused and trying to do things the right way. I think that’s the disappointing thing (last week) is that we made more mistakes than we made combined in the last two games which leads to a little bit of a lopsided result,” Clark said. “The results that we made in the first two games, there were some glaring ones — safety, interception return for a touchdown, blocked field goal, jump offsides late. Any of those plays wins game one.”

A huge bright spot last week was the play of Terrence Oliver in the backfield. The Warrior ran for 298 yards — second most in Lycoming history for a single game, and the most rushing yards in a single game by a Landmark Conference player — as he averaged 13.5 per carry and had two rushing touchdowns.

Oliver entered the year as a player teams knew they had to focus on, and he’s backing that up by being one of the Landmark Conference’s top players so far this season. Through three games, Oliver has rushed for 535 yards and five touchdowns, averaging 8.9 per carry and 178.3 per game.

“He’s one of the best running backs to ever play here,” Clark said.

Oliver is optimistic as a player. Even after dropping to 0-3, he feels the team has the ability to still turn the season around.

“I do (feel we can turn things around). I’m actually still excited to show the world the finished product that we’ve been putting in. We’re way better than we were last year, the biggest indicator of that is we can fight,” Oliver said. “We can come out and score touchdowns. Last year we would have crumbled after the first week, so to come out here and fight every day (has been key).

Oliver also noted that the team has resiliency in how they respond.

“We knew what we had and what we could bring to the table. That’s why people weren’t defeated two weeks in,” Oliver said. “If I’m being honest talking to my teammates, it feels like we didn’t even lose. I wish you were here to see it, we put in so much ork from last December to now. We’re a completely different team. I’m excited to put together this finished product and keep it going.”

It keeps going today at 1 p.m. against Rowan.