Sandwiched in between two solid periods for the Twin City Thunder were 20 minutes they would like to forget.

The Boston Junior Bruins defeated the Thunder 3-1 victory in USPHL National Collegiate Development Conference junior hockey play at the Norway Savings Bank Arena.

All three of the Bruins’ goals came in the middle frame.

“As a a team, we need to learn to compete for a full 60 minutes against these teams that are very strong and who to find ways to win games,” Thunder coach Doug Friedman said.

Only a minute into the second period, Boston’s Michael Holland scored on the power play to tie the score at 1-1. Michael Brown added another power play goal to give the Junior Bruins a 2-1 lead.

“They are a team that executes well on their special teams, especially their power play,” Friedman said. “They got a lot of talent, I think they got seven or eight Division I commits on their team right now.

“We have to be a lot more discipline, a couple of our penalties, they weren’t the best penalties, either, they weren’t hard-working penalties. They were selfish, slashes, retaliation and things like that, that we aren’t going to stand for.”

A few fighting majors were handed out midway through the second period. Nicolas Poirier and Levente Keresztes of the Thunder each got five minutes for fighting, while Keresztes also got a 10-minute misconduct for continuing or attempting to continue a fight.

For the Junior Bruins, Collin Graf picked up a fighting major and Ryan Lovett received a 10-minute misconduct for continuing or attempting to continue a fight.

At the end of the second period, Johnny Mulera, a University of Connecticut recruit, potted his league-leading 14th goal of the season to give Junior Bruins a 3-1 lead after 40 minutes.

The Thunder opened the scoring in the first period when Fisher Shea picked up his first goal of the season after joining the team two weeks ago.

“He’s playing well. I think he’s getting more confident and comfortable with our systems,” Friedman said. “He’s been a real nice addition and he has a real good shot and a good knack of getting pucks to the net. We are telling him to get more shots because he can rip it.”

The Thunder are back in action Saturday as they travel to face the New Hampshire Junior Monarchs at 2:40 p.m.

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