The Alpena Street Cats lost twice to the Traverse City Hounds over the weekend in Midwest Junior Hockey league action at Northern Lights Arena.
The Street Cats attempted to rally from a 3-1 deficit in the third period on Saturday, but couldn't rally all the way back and lost 3-2. Pavel Bocharov scored for Alpena with less than five minutes remaining, but the Street Cats couldn't net the equalizer.
The two wins strengthened the Hounds' league lead, pushing them to 38 points, seven ahead of the second-place Detroit Fighting Irish. Alpena currently sits in fourth place with 20 points.
Sergey Merzlov added a goal and an assist for Alpena (10-11).
Adam Jonak and Scott Luca scored for the Hounds and a third goal from Tyler Thirlby gave Traverse City a 3-1 lead in the third period.
Traverse City had 13 power-plays for the game, but went 0-for-13 as Alpena racked up 28 penalty minutes.
David Krejcik turned aside 16 shots on goal for the Hounds and Aleksandr Shishkin made 37 saves for Alpena.
Thirlby and Kevin Miloser each scored twice for the Hounds on Friday in a 6-1 win over the Street Cats.
Traverse City held a 1-0 lead after the first period, but broke the game opened with three goals in the second period. The Hounds outshot Alpena 41-27 for the game.
Bocharov netted Alpena's only goal with an assist from Konstantin Khramov in the third period to make the score 5-1.
Krejcik made 26 saves for the Hounds and Vlad Salangin took the loss for Alpena after playing nearly half the game allowing three goals and making 14 saves on 17 shots. Shishkin played the other half of the game and made 21 saves.
The Street Cats host the Michigan Ice Dogs for a three-game weekend series beginning at 7 p.m. on Friday at Northern Lights Arena.