If the Muskegon Lumberjacks are ever going to rise above the .500 mark and get solidly back in the playoff picture, they will have to start stringing together some two-win weekends.

That’s something they haven’t done since Nov. 25-26, when they took two games from the Madison Capitols.

The Jacks had a great chance to end that cold streak on Saturday night when they faced the last-place Capitols again in the second of a two-game weekend series. They beat Madison on Friday with a seven-goal performance and seemed primed to complete the sweep.

But the offense that dominated on Friday disappeared on Saturday, and the Jacks fell 3-1 to the Capitols at the Bob Suter Capitol Ice Arena in Wisconsin.

Lumberjacks forward Niko Rexine, who scored the team’s lone goal on Saturday.

The Lumberjacks fell to 18-20-2 on the season while Madison improved to 10-28-2.

The Jacks will host Green Bay in a pair of games next weekend.

Madison’s Andrew Kuzma scored the only goal of the first period at the 17:58 mark.

Muskegon tied the game just 1:08 into the second period on a goal by Niko Rexine, who now has eight on the season. Sacha Boisvert and Matthew Morder assisted on the tally.

The Capitols broke the tie at 16:04 of the second period with a goal by Ethan Elias, then secured the win with an empty-net goal by Jordan Gudridge at 18:04 of the third.

Muskegon goalie Conor Callagha took the hard-luck loss while stopping 32 of 34 shots. The Jacks had a 36-35 advantage in shots on goal.

The Lumberjacks continued their strong play on the penalty kill, keeping the Capitols scoreless in five power play opportunities.