But now, all the Moccasins can hope for is to maintain their second-place status, as Lake Charles came into the Snake Pit Friday night and defeated Monroe 4-1.

The loss was the third straight for the Moccasins, who are now tied with the Ice Pirates for second place in the WPHL's Eastern Division.

It was a defensive struggle early in the game, but in a matter of 10 minutes in the second period the game belonged to Lake Charles.

Three goals by the Ice Pirates in the span of five minutes was enough to hold off the Moccasins.

"In the second period, for about seven, eight minutes we were horrible," Moccasins coach Brian Curran said. "We played bad hockey and (Lake Charles) played well."

Perhaps feeling the effects of having scoring threats Darren Dougan, Kelvin Solari and Ty Hartigan out with injuries, the Moccasins didn't seem to have the firepower needed to mount much of an attack.

At times throughout the game, the Moccasins had three defensemen on the ice.

"Right there, we've lost a lot of points between the three of them and that definitely hurts," Curran said. "It hurts the chemistry of a hockey team."

This was not the way the Moccasins wanted to get things started for this weekend. Monroe faces frontrunner Shreveport today at the Snake Pit before hitting the road for a tough game against Arkansas on Sunday.

It seems the Ice Pirates have the Moccasins' number this season. Lake Charles is 6-1-1 against Monroe this year.

"We wanted this game because we don't want to slide into the playoffs," center Matt Cressman said. "We're tied with (Lake Charles) now so we need to step up because we don't want to be on the road for the playoffs. But we do have a game on them."

Monroe had played 60 games and Friday's game was the 61st for the Ice Pirates.

After a scoreless first period in which the Moccasins were outshot 13-7, the Moccasins became the aggressor, outshooting the Ice Pirates 16-10 in the second period.

But a few mental lapses and spells of sloppy play in the second period doomed the Moccasins, who were down 3-0 before they scored their lone goal.

And the way the Ice Pirates scored their first goal will drive any coach crazy.

Lake Charles' Bill Lund took a breakaway and scored a shorthanded goal at the 7:49 mark of the second period.

Less thatn two minutes later, Lund assisted on a 2-on-1 with Tracy Katelnikoff for a goal and a 2-0 lead.