Oxford City Stars gave defending English National League champions Wightlink Raiders a real scare – but fell just short in their South Division 1 clash.

Stars raced into a 2-0 lead inside four minutes, but eventually went down 4-3 as the visitors hit back.

Coach Ken Forshee was left to rue a below-par final period, where his side were unable to muster a final effort and get something from the game.

“I thought we played very well,” Forshee said.

“We skated well and played with a lot of energy in the first two periods, but then for some reason didn’t play as well in the third.

“Our third periods have to get better, but overall we played well and we got another solid performance from our young goalkeeper Patrick Russell.

“We have a very important part of our schedule coming up in the next three weeks.

“We play mostly against teams that we should be looking to beat and five of the six games are at home so we need to make the most of it.”

Stars took the lead when Cameron Birrell charged down the ice, beating three players before passing inside to Gareth Endicott who shot home.

A spectacular long-range effort from Darren Elliott doubled the lead, with just 3mins 43secs on the clock.

Wightlink reduced the score midway through the period when Richard Facey capitalised on a defensive error to make it 2-1.

They equalised on 16 minutes when Jeremy Cornish fired home.

However, when Cornish and Daniel Pye were both sin-binned, Stars made most of their two-man advantage to regain the lead through Dax Hedges.

Wightlink, however, levelled once more through Alex Murray, despite being a man down when Pye was again off the ice.

And the visitors won the game in the final period when Joe Rand scored, and Stars could find no answer.