Can someone explain this to me?

Couple of possibilities:

  1. Sounds like you were putting a lot more pressure on yourself before the first game. You tried to do everything “right” but even that may have backfired in the sense that it made you more uptight about your performance. What is your normal routine before a game?

Playing loose and not caring about the game (as long as you are giving your best) can actually be a good thing because you become less focused on the outcome and can stay in the moment.

  1. The game you played well was in the evening (7pm) while the one you didn’t was in the afternoon (2pm). When do you normally train? Generally it is a good idea to try to do your training at the same time as your important matches.

  2. From a nutritional standpoint, game 1 had little protein compared to game two. Again, what is your normal nutritional program?

My approach for big competitions is not to try to do anything special in any aspect (warmup, nutrition, mindset) and just relax and repeat what I have been doing in training. Trying to do something special usually results in less than optimal results.