The first two Big North Conference games for the Alpena boys soccer team have unfortunately ended the same way.

The Wildcats have outplayed their opponents, but were unable to come away with a win and on Tuesday, Alpena (2-3-1) fell to 0-2 in conference play with a 2-1 loss against Traverse City Central at Wildcat Stadium.

“Two defensive errors made the difference tonight. We can’t make these kind of mistakes, especially against a team that you’re trying to compete with for a league title with,” Alpena coach Tim Storch said. “It’s not good enough for us to just be good enough against some of these top teams in the conference. We are capable of beating teams like this if we don’t beat ourselves, but in these first two league games, we’ve clearly beaten ourselves.”

The first defensive miscue came just over 10 minutes into the first half when the Wildcats gave up an easy breakaway goal to the Trojans as Sam Huver walked in all alone on Alpena goalkeeper Levi Goebel and found the back of the net to give Traverse City the early advantage.

The Trojans nearly added a second goal midway through the first half as the ball ended up in the back of the net on a free kick, but Traverse City was called for offsides and the goal was erased.

Alpena had a few chances in the first half, but missed high on several attempts as the Wildcats outshot the Trojans in the first half, despite trailing by a goal.

“We outshot another opponent again tonight. Sometimes we are holding the ball too long and not playing quick enough or our shot is just off the mark. We are close, but it’s frustrating to be close and continue shooting ourselves in the foot,” Storch said.

Traverse City opened the second half with a flurry of scoring chances, but Goebel came up and made several key saves to keep his team in the game.

The Trojans were able to get a second goal past Goebel with 24:14 left in the game to take a two goal lead on a near post shot that snuck past Goebel.

“Goalies should never give up near post goals, especially a guy of Levi’s caliber and he knows that. Again, the two mistakes were just really frustrating to see tonight, because we could have easily won this game tonight,” Storch said.

The lone Alpena goal came with 14:57 to play as Aidan Day found a way to kick the ball through a ton of traffic in front of the Trojans’ net and past Trojan goalkeeper Charlie Douglass.

The Wildcats had a great opportunity with just over 10 minutes left in the game to even the score at two goals apiece as a ball came free in front of the net, but Douglass made an incredible save as he got enough of the ball to deflect it over top of the Traverse City net to save the one goal lead and help the Trojans secure the victory.

“It’s gut check time. There is not really more that can be done from a coaching standpoint. At some point it comes down to the players because they play. We have good players and we’re going to find out what we’re made of,” Storch said.

The Wildcats will look to bounce back and win their first conference game on Thursday when they travel to Gaylord.