Sunday was another game where the Moose Jaw Generals were right there with a top team, but couldn’t find a way to get over the hump.

The Generals lost 5-3 to the Prince Albert Mintos on Sunday afternoon at Mosaic Place in the Saskatchewan Midget AAA Hockey League.

“The guys played hard, but we just had too many mistakes and that’s the result, another one-goal loss, well with an empty net goal,” said Head Coach Ray Wareham.

The loss was the tenth straight for the Generals, who dropped to 6-23-2-3 on the year.

Jaxsen Wiebe, Nolan Jones and Brendan Kemp all scored in the loss for Moose Jaw.

“For the most part, the guys compete hard all the time, but we don’t have a lot of hockey sense, which makes it real difficult for us to get on the attack on the offensive side of things,” said Wareham. “Very rarely can we come over here and say it’s a lack of effort, so we’re just hoping that guys stay with it until the end of the year and it pays off next year.”

The game was tight throughout the three periods.

It started with the Mintos taking early control thanks to back-to-back goals from Kishaun Gervais and Austin Lamotte 1:42 apart, but Moose Jaw answered back with Kemp finishing off a nice passing play to get the Generals on the board with 1:39 to go in the first.

The Mintos opened the second with a power play goal from Parker Fofonoff just 1:24 into the middle frame.

The Generals wasted no time answering the two-goal deficit as Wiebe scoring his seventh of the season less than five minutes later and just over three minutes after that, Jones jumped all over a turnover and tied the game up at 3-3.

Prince Albert retook the lead early in the third period on a power play goal from Alex Moar and then he would seal the win with an empty net goal in the final minute, which came with some controversy as the Mintos looked to be offside the goal, but the officials decided to count it.

The Generals were out-shot 33-30 in the game and went 0-for-4 on the power play, while the Mintos scored on two of their three opportunities with the man advantage.

With ten games to go in the regular season, Wareham said he’s happy with the progress that the team has shown, even if the results haven’t been there.

“We had some real good one-on-ones over the last week with the guys and some guys have come leaps and bounds from where they were in August, so we’re really encouraged by the progress,” he said.

“A lot of the kids have been put in situations that they probably shouldn’t have played in this year, but in our situation, they had to play those minutes, but they’ve handled it and learnt from it and we’re hoping that they’re better players for it next year.”

The Generals are back on home ice coming up on Thursday when they host the Notre Dame Hounds at Mosaic Place. Puck drops at 7 p.m.