RoughRiders' slide continues

CEDAR RAPIDS - You can tell by the slight limp he had as he walked around his team's dressing room last night. The captain is playing hurt.

“Always,” the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders winger Jeff Costello said with a smile, after his team's tough 3-2 loss to Indiana before 1,770 fans at The Stable.

Costello's crash-and-bang style will consistently lead to a certain amount of nicks and bruises. The dude is never one to avoid contact.

But it takes a minute or two for him to run down his injury list these days.

“My ankle, my other foot has been acting up a little bit,” Costello said. “My knee, both my knees. I hurt one when I was up in Canada at the World Junior thing, and the other one, I just tweaked it last night (at Waterloo). It's not too bad ... Once you're in the game, everything becomes numb.”

The Ottawa Senators draft pick and Notre Dame commitment scored his eighth goal of the USHL season late in the second period to tie things at 2-2. But Antti Roppo's goal two minutes into the third period sent Cedar Rapids (9-8-1, 19 pounds) to its fourth straight loss and eighth in 10 games.

And a third game in as many nights comes tonight at home against 16-3 Omaha.

“We're definitely working hard,” Costello said. “It's not from a lack of effort. We're getting our chances, we've just got to bury them. Just get back to the way we want to play the game. We've strayed from it these last two games a little bit. We need to use our speed, use our grit to forecheck the other team and wear them down.

“I mean, we've been doing that in most of our games. We've just got to find a way to get to the paint to score those dirty goals.”

The Riders have seen opponents clog up the neutral zone against them of late to negate their skating speed and quickness. A slow start also didn't help last night, as Indiana scored power-play goals late in the first and early in the second for a 2-0 lead.

Jared Beers' power-play goal with 6:39 left in the second seemed to energize the home club and the crowd.

“We didn't play with tons of emotion until we scored,” Riders Coach Mark Carlson said. “I thought we had a lot of chances from that point on.”

That included a last-gasp power play the last 1:59 that turned into a 6-on-4 man advantage when goalie Troy Grosenick was pulled for an extra attacker. The Riders put on intense pressure but couldn't tie it.

“We need to play the full 60 minutes with emotion to win hockey games,” Carlson said.

The Riders' scratches were Jordan DiGiando, Steven Hensley and Sam Warning. Hensley has a minor shoulder injury.

Cedar Rapids also has eliminated defenseman

Thomas Mahoney from the roster. Mahoney went pointless in five games, though he was a plus-one.