BOSTON — The Suffolk Club Hockey Team is off to a rough start in their second season after dropping their second straight game out of the last three. The Rams played the Berklee Icecats, who played a fundamentally sound game.

Unfortunately, the Rams were missing many key players due a scheduling mistake made by the league. With only eight skaters and a goalie, far below normal for a team to keep a competitive edge, Suffolk looked tired and unfocused in the second period.

Suffolk came out of the gates on fire scoring two quick goals from Jason Hostetter, his third of the year, at 2:00 minutes into the game and a goal from Jon Doodian just a minute and 50 seconds later. Tim Carvalho assisted on both goals sending Doodian in on a breakaway, splitting the Berklee defense and putting the puck over the goalie’s shoulder.

“I saw Doods breaking hard into the center of the ice and luckily I was able to get the puck to him and he put a great shot over the guy’s shoulder,” said Carvalho.

Unfortunately, after these two quick goals by Suffolk, Berklee came roaring back with two goals by Matt Lowell and then another by Berklee defenseman Brandon Jones with 30 seconds left in the first period, to give Berklee a 3-2 lead going into the 2nd.

According to forward Jim Prescott, the 2nd period has never been one of Suffolk’s strong points in the game.

“I don’t know what it is, the last few games we have been giving up a lot of goals in the 2nd. We seem to lose our focus and let the other team take over the game.” That’s exactly what Berklee did, scoring three straight goals and making the score 6-2.

Suffolk tried to bounce back in the third, scoring two more goals by Carvalho and Doodian but with such a short bench, they ran out of gas.

Suffolk goalie Matt Kantro was hopeful, saying, “This wasn’t our full team! Come back when we have our real team — it will be a different story. I can’t wait to play them again.”

Berklee’s David Jones scored three goals and had two assists, putting the game out of reach for the Rams when he scored 2:50 minutes into the 3rd period off a shot that deflected off a Suffolk player’s skate and into the net. The goal advanced the score 7-4, which made the game almost unreachable for the Rams.

“I just wanted to put the puck on net and it just happened to work out. I saw they (Suffolk) were running around a little bit in their end and in hockey it never hurts to put the puck on net, and good things happen. Fortunately this was one of those times,” said Jones.

“That goal was really a back breaker for us as a team. With our short numbers, we have been struggling but were keeping it close. When that goal was scored it seemed like a lot of air was let out of tires,” said Mike Doyle, captain of the Suffolk team.

Suffolk and Berklee will match-up two more times this season for games that should be both high spirited and competitive.