MONROE — The Monroe co-op boys hockey team was in the midst of its best season in program history, starting the year 12-1. However, the Cheesemakers knew a brutal stretch of the season was coming up in late January and into February and have since gone 1-5.

“We’re in a place right now that is not good. We’ve strung some bad things together, some bad games together,” Monroe coach Barry Einbeck said.

Ever since a statement 5-2 win over Monona Grove, the Cheesemakers have struggled to find its footing. Back-to-back one-goal losses to McFarland and Oregon took Monroe out of contention in the Badger South. Monroe then scored a 4-1 nonconference win over Beloit Memorial Jan. 16, but then have stumbled some more.

On Jan. 21, Madison Edgewood came to Monroe and won 4-2 in a game that was scoreless through two periods. Just six days later the two teams had a rematch, with Edgewood slicing the Cheese to the tune of 7-0 at LaBahn Arena, home of the Wisconsin women’s hockey team.

“We’re in a hole right now and we’re sinking fast,” Einbeck said. “It’s one of those things that it’s not only physical on the ice where we’re trying to work as a team, but it’s a mental thing. Maybe the mental preparation of this game needs to be better. Are we preparing the right way coming into the rink? We’ve done very well this year and had good success, but maybe we’re not as urgent as we should be.”

Things didn’t get any better for Monroe the next night at home. Leading scorer Hayden Roth was out with an injury for Monroe, and by the end of the game Monroe’s Line 2 center, Ryan Molitor, and first-line defender Jared Dillon, were also out with injuries. 

Sauk Prairie laid waste on the undermanned Cheesemakers, winning 6-1. If the score also appears as though the Eagles were playing 5-on-4 for large swaths of the game, it’s because they were.

Monroe was called for 28 penalty minutes to Sauk Prairie’s two, though much of those minutes came on just two calls. The Cheesemakers were flagged for two five-minute major penalties.

With the Eagles leading 2-0 with under six minutes left in the second period, Monroe junior defender Brady Smith bodied up Sauk’s Jay Liedtke in Eagles’ defensive zone. Liedtke landed awkwardly after making contact with the 6-foot-5 Smith and then hit the boards and laid on the ice. The clean hit was ruled as a 5-minute boarding penalty and a 10-minute game misconduct. As a five-minute major, Monroe had to play 4-on-5 for the full five minutes, which did not bode well for the home team.

“A lot of our penalties are because we are going in (to contact) out of control and we’re not going in properly. We need to go in stick-on-puck; but we’re going in just to hit them,” said Monroe senior Payton Stauffacher, who was hit with a five-minute major penalty of his own late in the third period. “We just can’t do that. It gets a nice reaction from the crowd, but then you end up sitting in the box for a couple of minutes. That’s not very fun.”

The Eagles scored three times in the final 4:35 of the second period, including with just five seconds left in the penalty. That put the Cheesemakers down 5-1 heading into the second intermission.

“The only thing we can really do is not hang our heads and come back out firing. That just didn’t happen tonight, and it didn’t go our way. A lot of bounces we just didn’t hit. The bounces we did get, we couldn’t make count. We just couldn’t finish,” Stauffacher said.

Monroe goalie Heath Bear was pulled for the third intermission — though not for poor performance. Despite allowing five goals, four came on power plays and he stopped a total of 32 shots. Meanwhile, Monroe had put just five shots on goal in the first two periods.

Jayden Johnson replaced Bear in net and allowed just one goal — on Stauffacher’s 5-on-4 five-minute major. Johnson turned away 27 shots in the period. In all, Monroe was outshot 65-12.

“It was pretty fast paced and a little terrifying at first. I finally got my wits together and put it in gear pretty quick,” Johnson said.

Monroe’s lone goal against Sauk Prairie was by Cooper Dreyfus, who lit the lamp off a pass from Roman Bauer. It was the only goal allowed in 12 shots by Sauk Prairie’s Jordan O’Connor, who also has spent ice time playing for the Madison Capitols’ U16 girls team.

In the 7-0 loss to Edgewood, Monroe was outshot 45-15. The Crusaders scored two goals in the first period, two more in the second and three in the third.

“We’re not playing as a group; we’re not playing to the structure and the system that we want to play to. And then when we run into good teams like Edgewood and Sauk Prairie, the kids get frustrated and then they try to do too much and stuff compounds after that,” Einbeck said. “We just have to be better. We have to catch passes; we need to support better; we need to move the puck to where the open ice is at; we have to move better away from the puck.”

Up next for the Cheesemakers was a road game at Stoughton Jan. 30, with a home contest against Milton slated for Feb. 4. Just two games remain on the schedule after that, road contests at Monona Grove Feb. 8 and McFarland Feb. 11.

“Coach told us that we need to mentally prepare better than what we are doing. At the beginning of the season we were pretty spot on with that, and now this late stretch in the season we are pretty off. It makes it hard to get back on a streak,” Stauffacher said. “We really need to focus up. We really don’t want our season to end right after that and go up against a good team. We want a good seed so we can go as far in the playoffs as we can.”