The IW Thunder under 16 ice hockey team faced a tougher Oxford side than they beat 7-0 just two weeks earlier, but still ran out convincing 6-2 winners.

They soon got into their stride and scored the first goal as two of the Under 14 players combined, Sean Molloy netting after good work from Alexander Trendall.

The second period was far better from the hosts and their dominance paid off when Trendall scored, assisted by Aidan Doughty and Aaron Craft. The turning point of the game came midway through the period when two goals within 30 seconds were scored by Doughty, with one of the goals assisted by livewire Archie Bicknell.

Oxford scored their first goal after a couple of minutes of ill discipline from the Thunder. However, the hosts did have the final say in the period when Doughty scored after a strong assist from captain Luke Bontoft.

The third period enabled all the lines to get plenty of ice time and also back up netminder Hannah Bowkis to step between the pipes. As in so many games this season the lesser experienced players really made the most of their ice time and caused Oxford all sorts of problems.

Liam Denness and Daniel Bennett probed away at the Oxford defence along with Ben Thomas-Hart. Cheri Price also iced for the first time in a good number of months after an operation and certainly didn’t look at all rusty.

The pressure certainly paid off and with just three minutes to go the Thunder scored the last goal of the game with the Doughty-Bicknell combination doing the damage.

The defensive quartet of Andrew McCloskey, Dylan Ronald, Archie Bicknell and Luke Bontoft were once again the backbone of the result backed up admirably by Bowkis and Powell in goal.

Man of the match: Alexander Trendall. Spirit of the game: Joss Osman