THE Basingstoke Bison lost in a penalty shoot-out on Sunday night at the Milton Keynes Thunder.

Former Basingstoke Buffalo netminder Jordan Lawday turned in another super performance for the home side, as he faced 50 shots on the night and denied all three of the Herd's shooters in a tense finale.

The contest saw a return between the pipes for Dan Weller-Evans in the Bison net from injury.

It was the Thunder who scored first as man of the match Hallden Barnes-Garner netted at 8:50.

The Herd hit back 19 seconds later as Alex Sampford scored from man of the match Richard Bordowski and Sam Smith, the defenceman picking up his first point of the season.

The Bison then took the lead at 17:26 from Ashley Tait assisted by Russ Cowley and Michael Klejna.

However, MK tied the game up within a minute as Rio Grinell-Parke scored.

The home side took the lead in the contest, with the only goal of the second session scored by Barnes-Garner.

The Herd then tied things up with the only goal of the final 20 minutes as George Norcliffe converted a pass from Danny Ingoldsby.

With no further scoring in the rest of the session and overtime, the game was decided by a penalty shoot-out.

Tomas Rubes scored the opener for MK and then Klejna hit the post with his effort.

Jamie Line, Bordowski and Sean Norris all failed to score, so it was left to Cowley to try and send the shoot-out into sudden death, but he could not beat Lawday.

Next for the Bison is a home game against Streatham on Saturday (6.30pm).