London Raiders advanced to the National Ice Hockey League South Division One semi-final with an emphatic 11-3 aggregate victory over Oxford City Stars.

The opening game of the two-leg clash saw Raiders come away with a 4-2 win at the Lee Valley Ice Centre on Saturday to give themselves the advantage in the tie.

The sides’ previous meeting proved to be a thrilling clash as Raiders fought back from 4-1 down to secure a draw with just 10 seconds remaining in the game.

Raiders were boosted before the start by the return of influential duo Marek Nahlik and JJ Pitchley, but still made a slow start to proceedings.

Oxford took full advantage of the lacklustre display and were 2-0 up with under half of the first period played as goals from Josh Oliver and Jason Ikin gave the visitors the advantage.

Struggling to get back into the game, the first interval could not have come at a better time and Raiders came out for the second quarter with greater attacking effort.

They cut the Oxford deficit in half within just a minute of the restart thanks to Marek Nahlik’s goal and Raiders began to apply greater pressure on the Oxford goal.

The following quarter-of-an-hour was all one-way traffic and Pitchley followed up a fumble from Oxford keeper Mark Duffy to level the scores.

Raiders continued to dominate in the third period and put the game to bed as Pitchley scored twice more to complete a hat-trick on his return to the side.

If Saturday had been a battle for dominance, Sunday was anything but, and Raiders ran riot at the Oxford Ice Centre and cruised to a 7-1 win.

They started the game in the same impressive manner they had closed the first leg and Pitchley was on target again to give them the lead after 11 minutes.

Nahik added two more before the end of the first half to give Raiders a 3-0 lead at the end of the first period.

Three more unanswered goals in the second period all but killed the game as a contest as Oxford’s defence failed to deal with Raiders’ flying forwards.

Fittingly, Pitchley would score the final goal of the weekend for Raiders as they booked a semi-final spot against Chelmsford.

The first leg will be played at Lee Valley on Saturday, April 1 before the sides face off in Chelmsford 24 hours later.