Sevenoaks 3 v 2 Oxford Hawks

Sevenoaks hosted Oxford Hawks on Saturday in their fourth national league game of the season and came away with three points after winning 3-2. The victory makes it back to back wins for Sevenoaks who beat Havant 5-3 the previous weekend.

In the first quarter Sevenoaks set the tone and played some sublime hockey taking the lead through a goal from man of the match James Thomas. Thomas stole the ball off an Oxford player on the left hand side baseline and calmly put it past the goalkeeper to take the lead. Sevenoaks kept the pressure on Oxford and minutes later got their second goal through Edward Matts who slotted the ball under the oncoming keeper from close range. Sevenoaks continued to dominate and played the best part of the first quarter in the Oxford's half.

At the start of the second quarter Sam George won a penalty corner with some great hands down the baseline. Andrew Ross’s subsequent dragflick which was travelling towards the top right corner was miraculously saved by the postman’s stick to keep Oxford's hopes alive. However, barely a few minutes later Ross ran into the right hand side of the circle and won another penalty corner for Oaks. Ross made no mistake this time around and slotted the ball into the bottom left corner making it 3-0 to Oaks.

It was a more even game in the third quarter. After a fairly tame first ten minutes Oxford were awarded a controversial penalty stroke which they converted to make the score line 3-1. Shortly afterwards Oxford were awarded a penalty corner from which Richard Potton made an excellent save down to his right hand side to maintain Oaks' two goal lead going into the final quarter.

As the momentum seemed to be shifting into Oxford's favour they converted a well taken penalty corner to make it 3-2 with just ten minutes to play. Three minutes later Oxford won another penalty corner, but this time the Sevenoaks defence ran down the flick and Potton made a great save off the rebound shot to keep Sevenoaks in the lead.

The last few minutes of the game were tense but Sevenoaks did enough to see out the game and take the three points.

Sevenoaks next game is away against Brighton and Hove on Saturday evening at 5pm.