There was a thrilling finish as Invicta Dynamos returned to home ice on Sunday.

Following on from their 7-5 away win at Oxford City Stars on Saturday, the Mos looked to be on course for a maximum point haul as they led Solent Devils 4-3 on Sunday, only to concede a late fourth and then lose in a sudden-death shootout.

Three points wasn’t to be sniffed at but head coach Karl Lennon knew they could well have had all four from the weekend.

Commenting on Sunday’s game, Lennon said: “We were in a pretty good space with a few minutes left to play, gave away a silly goal from an unforced error and that put us in a difficult spot at the end of the game.

“We had better chances than they did in over-time as well, we just couldn’t make it happen. There were 20 odd shots in the shootout, we went two down very quickly and then they missed a few, we scored two of ours to take it through to sudden death and then it’s just a roulette isn’t it? They got it done and we didn’t.

“We’ve picked up three points from four, that’s good, but it could have been four.

“The importance of Sunday is that Solent are now equal on points with us, ahead on head-to-heads and they have two games in hand, they are in a better position than we are, but across the weekend we clawed a point on Chelmsford and Slough who both dropped points, so there are some positives to take.”

Sunday’s match in Gillingham had seen Tom Soar open the scoring only for Solent to reply with two of their own. Towards the end of the first period Stanislav Lascek squared it up again at 2-2.

Lennon felt his team were playing into Solent’s hands during the second period, with the visitors dictating the pace of the game. Ruskin Springer-Hughes netted for the Mos but the Devils answered back.

Lennon said: “I told the lads they could go and get the win but had to dictate and set the pace because they try and slow things down and are more methodical.

“We did really well (in the third period), got the goal to go ahead (through Soar) and looked quite comfortable, had better chances than they did for the majority of the game but at the end of that period we made a really silly pass, they picked it up and scored and that was the equalising goal which sapped the energy from us and it didn’t need to be that way, it could have been different.”

The Mos had beaten Oxford City Stars 7-5 the night before in their first game back from their festive break.

The home side were no doubt still smarting from a 7-0 drubbing when they met before the Christmas break and fired up. They struck first after just 14 seconds and within eight minutes were two up.

Soar struck twice to level it up and from then the Mos just about kept their noses in front.

Matty Bell, Springer-Hughes and Brandon Chard scored to put Mos 5-4 up by the end of the second period and further goals from Dan Scott and Lascek in the third clinched the points.

Lennon said: “That 7-0 defeat was obviously resting on them and they came out out of the traps flying and after scoring on 14 seconds you’re thinking ‘well, it’s going to be one of those games!’

“We were not in great shape at the start of the game, immediately after that they scored again, thankfully we seemed to regather ourselves and Tom Soar picked up two nice goals in the first period against them.

“You felt it was never going to be a comfortable road win but it was a win, so we can’t complain.”