News Photo by Jonny Zawacki Alpena freshman Harrison Kaszubowski (20) skates the puck into the Petoskey zone while being watched by Northmen defenseman Tate Wilder during the first period of a Big North Conference hockey game on Friday at Northern Lights Arena.

ALPENA — Three weeks ago, Alpena was a top-25 hockey team, earning a No. 19 ranking in the Division III high school hockey poll.

Since that ranking, the Wildcats have fallen and are in the midst of a lengthy losing streak.

It continued in a pivotal Big North Conference hockey matchup against Petoskey on Friday as the Wildcats dropped their second game in a week to the Northmen, losing 3-1.

The Wildcats (9-10, 4-2 BNC) entered Friday’s contest with an opportunity at a BNC title within reach. The loss ended that hope for the Wildcats though as the Northmen (17-4, 8-1) claimed the conference crown for the first time in 25 years.

“Petoskey plays hard and it’s real simple. They have a great goalie and that made it hard because we just didn’t get enough traffic in front of the net tonight and that’s how we scored our only goal of the night and it’s one of the only ways to score against good goaltending and we just didn’t do enough tonight,” Alpena coach Ben Henry said. “I give Petoskey a lot of credit, they work really hard and they’re fun to watch. They’re a good team.”

A sloppy second period for the Wildcats led to a pair of goals for Petoskey.

The Northmen broke the scoreless tie five minutes into the period as they applied pressure. Alpena was unable to clear the zone, which allowed Kolton Horn to get a shot on Alpena goalie Aidan Schultz.

Schultz made the save, but the rebound ended up right back on the stick of Horn who snuck one past Schultz to put the Northmen on top.

Midway through the period, Alpena had a power play opportunity, but coughed the puck up and a costly giveaway led to a two-on-one shorthanded opportunity for the Northmen. Rayce Szalkowski sent a perfect pass across to Horn for a goal to extend the Petoskey lead as the Wildcats faced a 2-0 deficit after two periods.

“The kids have to just start buying in. You can’t win with half a team and you need everyone on board. At the beginning of the year, I thought everyone was on the same page, but I think we’ve gotten away from that,” Henry said. “We’ll go back to work and see what happens. We just can’t show up when we want, we have to show up every single day, if we do that, we’ll win hockey games, 51 minutes of hard work usually means you come out on top.”

The Northmen took a commanding three-goal lead just over a minute into the third period on a four-on-four. Szalkowski netted his second goal of the game firing a wrist shot from just inside the blue line that found the back of the net.

Alpena did all it could to try and get back in the game. It cut into the lead when Matt Thompson corralled a rebound and scored a power play goal.

“I think we’ve kind of gone backwards. I think we found our identity early, but seemed to have lost it. Hopefully we’ll get it back and hopefully we’ll get it back soon,” Henry said. “I do believe in our team and know what they can do. We just need to break this seal we’re in and once we do, I think we’ll break out.”

The Wildcats will have little time to rest as they return to the ice at Northern Lights Arena today at 4:30 p.m. looking to snap their six-game losing streak when they welcome Traverse City West.