Thunder open the season with Oxford Cup tradition

Sebastian Guastadigsegni scored the opening goal of the season to put the Thunder ahead of the Tavistock Royals 1-0 in the Oxford Cup, Tavistock won the two-game series, which is decided by a cumulative score from both games. (Jeff Helsdon Photo).

Mike Holly, Post Contributor

The Tillsonburg Thunder continued the tradition of opening their season with the Oxford Cup, a home-and-home series against Tavistock.

The Friday game was in Tillsonburg. The game started quietly with not much intensity. That quickly changed as Tavistock and the Thunder started remembering the old rivalry. Sebastian Guastadigsegni from Tye Johnston opened the scoring at 14:31 of the first period. Tavistock took a 2-1 lead in the second with goals from Deven Kropf and Lucas Bast. Luke Sinclair from Sebastian Guastadigsegni and Justin Abraham evened it up for Tillsonburg on the power play in the third that put the game into overtime. Robert Maclean tipped a beautiful pass from Roberts and Abraham to win the game.

Admission to the game was a donation to the Tillsonburg Helping Hands Food Bank. This is the 18th year that the Thunder have donated. This year, $440 cash and about 200 pounds of food was donated by the fans. The Tillsonburg Thunder and the Food Bank thank you for your donations!!

Game Two was on Saturday night in Tavistock. The game was competitive till the end of the second but the experience of the Royals took over in the third, Tavistock taking the game 6-2. The final score for the two-game Oxford Cup was then 8-5 Tavistock.

Many of the players were playing for spots on both teams. Final selections are being made in the next two weeks. A final roster will be finalized then.

It has been a challenging off-season this year. The Thunder are in the process of rebuilding with young talent. This is a fast and competitive team however and we expect exciting games.

The October games for the Thunder are all away games. They play Seaforth on Oct. 4 at 7:30, Dunnville on Oct. 11 at 8:00, Elora on October 17 at 8:30, and Erin on October 25 at 7:30. The Thunder home opener is on Nov. 1 at 7:30 against the Tavistock Royals, where the Thunder hopes to avenge the Cup loss.