Oxford City Stars hopes of winning some silverware suffered a shattering blow as they threw away a two-goal lead in their 8-3 defeat at Sheffield Scimitars in the first leg of the English National League Cup final.

The visitors started the stronger, but ran out of steam in the final period, leaving themselves a tough task in the return leg on Sunday.

Stars took the lead when Alan Green was set up by Marlon Williams to net on their first powerplay after just two minutes.

And it got even better a few minutes later when, on another powerplay, Gary Slevin netted finished off a move involving Derek Flint and Nick Eden.

Five minutes later, though, Scimitars pegged a goal back when netminder Jamie Thompson was pushed over in his crease by a Sheffield player as he got up from a save, with Gavin Farrand firing into an empty net.

Later in the period, Sheffield equalised through John Ross.

In the second period, Sheffield took the lead with a powerplay goal from Neil Abel, only for Oxford to level when Dan Prachar broke out during a Sheffield powerplay and slid the puck home.

A couple of minutes from the end of the period, Oxford's Dave Carr was penalised for tripping for which he was given a ten-minute misconduct penalty. Ross scored from the powerplay, before Prachar received a ten-minute penalty.

The third period started with Oxford having to last the first ten minutes without Carr and Prachar, meaning they struggled to have enough players for two lines.

Sheffield dominated the session with Les Millie scoring a four-timer.

OXFORD SCORERS

A Green 1+1, D Prachar 1+0, G Slevin 1+0, D Carr 0+1, M Williams 0+1, D Flint 0+1.