PORTLAND – Responsible high school coaches don’t shy away from teaching life lessons, particularly the unpleasant ones. Cape Elizabeth boys’ hockey coach Bill LeBlond’s hard message for his players Saturday afternoon: There are consequences for breaking team rules.

Cape Elizabeth felt the sting of that lesson, falling 2-1 to Gardiner in a Western Class B game at Portland Ice Arena. The Capers suited up just 11 skaters as five players were benched for disciplinary reasons. Among them was Cape’s leading scorer, senior Nick Breed (16 goals, 8 assists), and his linemates, junior Chris Grennon (3 goals, 5 assists) and senior Matt Ross (3 goals, 1 assist).

“Trying to teach hockey is one thing,” LeBlond said. “We’re trying to have them be on time, have them let me know if something is different. These are just part of life’s lessons I want to get them to understand. There’s life after hockey and there are lessons to be learned.”

Cape goalie Kirby Saari (23 saves) knows this lesson well. He said he missed a game earlier this season because of tardiness.

“People understand now and obviously they won’t make these mistakes again,” he said. “It’s a good way to learn, just from the experience. Now we just need to get past this and focus on coming together and getting everyone healthy.”

It was the third straight loss for the Capers (4-3-2), who were also missing two other players — Austin Shields and Brandon Negele — because of concussions.

Gardiner (6-5), meanwhile, focused on the players on the ice.

“They rolled two lines and we play mostly two lines and I think that evened us out,” said Gardiner Coach Jeff Ross. “We tried to play physical from the beginning of the game because we figured it would pay off by the end, because they weren’t used to rolling two lines.”

The Tigers took a 1-0 lead on the power play at 7:55 of the second period, when Josh Moore beat Saari from the slot. Cam Sullivan assisted.

Cape Elizabeth suffered another loss in the second period when defenseman Ryan Bolduc left the game, apparently with a concussion. That left Cape with 10 skaters.

Senior forward Mackie Sweeney tied it for the Capers at 1:08 of the third period. He wrestled his way across the slot from left to right and sent a backhander over the right shoulder of goalie Brad Moore (18 saves). It was Sweeney’s first goal of the season.

Bryant Whitley scored the winner at 6:11 of the third when his slap shot from the right boards got past Saari.