DOWAGIAC — If the Dowagiac softball team is going to turn around its season after a 3-5 start, the Chieftains are going to have to get better in every phase of the game.

The Chieftains were 0-5 this past weekend as they were swept by South Haven in a Wolverine Conference non-divisional doubleheader, and then 0-3 at its own Chieftain Invitational, falling to Kalamazoo Central, Hartford and Watervliet.

Veteran Dowagiac coach Mike Benhke is anything put pleased with his squad, which has until Friday to try and fix some of the glaring errors from this weekend.

“We gave one away tonight,” said Behnke about the South Haven game. “Up by six runs in the bottom of the sixth inning with two outs and not being able to pull out the victory is very frustrating. We don’t have that killer instinct yet or know how to finish games.”

The frustration grew on Saturday as the Chieftains finished with 20 hits, but only scored 14 runs.

Dowagiac also committed 10 errors between the three games.

“We were not very good today (Saturday) in any aspect of the game,” he said. “We have to get better at focusing in on what we are doing or we will not be a very good team. We will work on that and the fundamentals of playing catch and fielding balls this week at practice.”

Dowagiac will get to apply what they learn over the next four days when they host Otsego in another Wolverine Conference non-divisional doubleheader Friday.

The first game is set to begin at 4 p.m.