AUBURN — Too little, too late for the Twin City Thunder.

The Thunder (23-21-1, 47 points) scored twice in the final four minutes to cut the deficit with the Boston Junior Bruins to one, but two late empty-net goals lifted the second-place Junior Bruins (37-7-3, 77 points) to a 7-4 victory at Norway Savings Bank Arena on Saturday.

“In the second period, it turned for us for a little bit,” Thunder coach Doug Friedman said. “Get a couple goals to get on the board. Then in the third, we had our chances, take away the empty-net goals we won the period 2-0. Too bad we couldn’t get a power play at the end on that cross check (that was missed).”

Twin City’s Christian Blomquist struck with 3:21 remaining in the game to cut the Junior Bruins lead to 5-3. Andrew Kurapov went end-to-end and was able to beat Bruins goalie Thomas Gale to cut the deficit to 5-4 with just under two minutes to go.

For Junior Bruins coach Mike Anderson, he knew the Thunder counter punch was coming.

“We have been in that situation against this team before, where they have come back and come very close to tying the game down at our place before the Christmas break” Anderson said. “It was no surprise that they came back. As I was telling the guys during the game, they have a good team.”

Yale commit Ian Carpentier and Luis Linder lit the lamp in the final minute for the Junior Bruins. Linder’s goal was his second of the game.

The Junior Bruins jumped out to an early 2-0 lead when Thunder goalie Alexander Kozic couldn’t corral the initial shot by Bradley Farrell and University of Connecticut commit Johnny Mulera picked the puck up at the top of the crease to put it past Kozic.

Ben Thomas scored on a breakaway 62 seconds later to stretch the lead to 2-0.

“I don’t know if momentum shifted because it was so early, but I think we had a really good start to the game,” Thomas said. “I think we had a really good start to the game and a good first period overall.”

Dartmouth recruit Ryan Lovett gave the Junior Bruins a 3-0 lead midway through the first period.

“They are a team that has a ton of skill, a ton of speed,” Friedman said. “We had a tough time in the first period adjusting to their speed, our (defense) and our forwards weren’t backchecking hard enough, we weren’t strong enough to counter their (offensive zone) entries. They gave us a tough time.”

On Boston’s third power play of the first stanza, Linder fired a rocket past Kozic (50 saves) with a minute remaining in the period as the Junior Bruins took a 4-0 lead into the first intermission.

The second period saw the Thunder come out strong, as Middlebury commit Andy Antiles fed John Kondub a pass and Kondub ripped it past Gale (32 saves) just 75 seconds into the frame.

When the Thunder were on to their first power play of the game, Daniels Murnieks’ shot had eyes and beat Gale to cut the deficit to 4-2.

Boston picked up a key goal in the final two minutes of the second period from Frankie Ireland to take a 5-2 lead into the third period.

“It’s a long game, there’s ups and downs, hey you are on the road, you don’t expect it to be easy,” Anderson said. “You know there’s a stretch that’s not going to go your way. That goal, the fifth one there, it was big, right, to give us a little breathing room going into the third. As it turns out we needed it.”

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