Oxford City Stars 5  v 2  MK Thunder 

Period Scores: 1 - 2, 1 - 0, 3 - 0 

Penalty Mins:    Oxford City Stars 64

                        MK Thunder 46                       

Shots on Goal:   On Oxford’s   James Skaife - 30                                                                               On MK Thunder’s  Mark Woolf - 33                                   

Oxford City Stars: Jacob Smith 2+1, Darren Elliot 1+1, Lee Featherstone 1+0, Grant Bailey 1+0, Andy Cox 0+2, Kent Johnson 0+1. 

MK Thunder: Lewis Clifford 1+0, Ivan Turan 1+0. 

MK Man Of The Match – Mark Woolf 

Thunder made the short trip down to Oxpens for their first meeting with local rivals Oxford City Stars last Sunday. Meetings between the two sides are always close competitive games in which, recently, Oxford have had the upper hand. An almost full strength Thunder knew they would have to be at the top of their game to get a result against a very good Oxford side bolstered by two ex-Thunder players Lee Featherstone and Mark Krater and for 55 minutes they were.

Oxford started strongly with fast attacking play, good passing and movement and Mark Woolf was soon in action in Thunder’s goal. An early powerplay opportunity gave Oxford the opening they were looking for and at 4:07 they took the lead through a Grant Bailey goal. From that point Thunder managed to get their game going and their strong physical style of play began to have an effect as Oxford’s passing game was broken up with the visitors spending ever increasing amounts of time in the City Stars defensive zone. Lewis Clifford managed to force home the equaliser at 15:03 and two minutes later a superb solo effort from Ivan Turan gave Thunder the lead. At the other end Woolf was having a fantastic game between the pipes, pulling off some great saves, one in particular  in the second period where, having made the first save he found himself out of position, the goal open and the puck on the stick of an Oxford player in front of net. Somehow Woolf threw himself back across goal to block the shot and get the puck away. The second period was very even, Oxford couldn’t find a way through and Thunder struggled to enforce themselves on the game as they took to many penalties. Just as it looked like Thunder would maintain a single goal lead into the third, a cruel deflection on a Lee Feathertone shot found its way past Woolf, probably the only way he could have been beaten in that period!

So, 2-2 going into the final period, and anyones game. Again the stalemate lasted until 5 minutes from time, and again it was Oxford that broke it with the go ahead goal at 55:47, a powerplay goal scored by Darren Elliot. Rocked by that, Thunder were stung again less than a minute later when Joe Oliver made it 4-2 to City Stars. Thunder pulled Woolf for the extra skater with a minute to go, but failed to take advantage and as often happens gave away the empty net goal. Although the final score was 5-2 to Oxford, the game was much closer than that with Woolf taking a well deserved man of the match for Thunder.