MIDDLESEX TWP — A little adversity is sometimes welcome.

That’s the message Butler hockey coach Patrick Hammonds is sending to his team.

He wants to see what his team is made of.

Adversity came to the Golden Tornado in the form of a 3-2 loss to Cathedral Prep at Ice Connection Monday night — their second consecutive loss after a 4-0-1 start.

“It’s a great opportunity to show, to be, mentally tough,” Hammonds said. “It’s easy to have a good attitude when things are good. It’s more difficult when things are going bad. We talk a lot about riding a wave within a season, a game and even a period.”

Butler (4-2-1) rode and early wave to an early score just five minutes into the game on a goal by Sam Gross.

But after that fast start, the Golden Tornado offensive wave crashed and was stymied by Cathedral Prep.

The Ramblers (3-4-1) tied the game with a goal from Jack Zaphiris late in the first period and took a 2-1 lead early in the second period on a Jake Emerson goal.

Butler, meanwhile, became more and more frustrated by the minute.

“You never want to lose, but when you do, you want to make sure you still played your brand and your style of hockey,” Hammonds said. “I don’t think we did that tonight.

“We got frustrated. We played frustrated instead of frustrating the other team,” Hammonds added. “We take a lot of pride in that. We take pride in being a gritty group and one of the hardest-working teams in the league. When you don’t do that and someone does that against you, it’s very frustrating.”

Perhaps even more frustrating was the happenings of the third period.

Butler got the tying goal from Connor Scott, but just 40 seconds later, Cathedral Prep regained the lead on the strength of a Jack Becker goal.

Butler had several opportunities to tie the game again in the final 12 minutes — especially in the final minute with a one-man advantage after the Golden Tornado pulled their goalie — but Cathedral Prep turned Butler away and hung on for the win.

Winning close game has not been a strength of the Ramblers this season.

Shaler scored two goals in the final minute to beat Cathedral Prep two weeks ago. The Ramblers also lost a game it led late to Upper St. Clair last week.

Holding onto this lead was paramount for Prep coach Craig Barnett.

“We’ve definitely had to look deep inside of us the last two weeks,” Barnett said. “It was good for us to be tested by a great team like Butler. Our kids bought in tonight and played hard and played for each other.”

Cathedral Prep out-shot Butler 29-24.

Both goalies — Zach Schnur for Butler and Jake Kucharski for Cathedral Prep — had solid games in the net.

“I thought both goalies played a great game,” Barnett said. “Jake really came up big for us, as did our defense.”

Hammonds now must wait to see how his team responds to the first rough patch of the season.

He said it might be a good wake-up call and a spark his team needs to get back to playing the way it did the first five games of the season.

“I think we were getting a little too comfortable,” Hammonds said. “We weren’t doing the things we did at the start of the season. This will show us and remind us of how much work we need to do to win.”