ASHMOOR men's 1st team bounced back from their narrow defeat at Fareham to produce a hard-fought victory against a lively University of Bristol side.

There were some good exchanges in the opening minutes with Ashmoor's press forcing errors from the Bristol defence. However, it was the University team who took the lead, a relatively innocuous shot from a tight angle on the left beating the normally reliable Ben Blundy in Ashmoor's goal.

Fortunately, the lead was short-lived as minutes later Fletch Naisbett-Jones won Ashmoor's first penalty corner. England junior international Ben Barnett picked up where he left of last week with a great top corner drag flick to draw the sides level.

The home side should have led soon after but Rich Fisher saw his penalty stroke come back off of the crossbar.

Bristol Uni started the second quarter brightly and had a goal to show for it, only for Ashmoor to respond again, Naisbett-Jones deflecting home Barnett senior’s shot to send the teams in at two apiece at half-time.

Early on in the second half, Lewie Jones had two strikes at goal in succession - both well saved by Bristol's keeper. At the other end, Ashmoor had to defend two University penalty corners but the defence dealt well with both of them.

Into the final quarter with the scores still level, it was a question of who wanted it more. Ashmoor showed the desire, Jack Dinnie stealing the ball well and setting up Naisbett-Jones. However, a slight edge took the ball away from the dangerous striker and the Bristol team breathed a sigh of relief.

Dinnie had another reverse stick effort into the side netting before the exciting final six minutes of the game.

With time running out, Cullen Turner found Hartley Colbourne in space in the shooting circle, and the youngster rifled his shot through a crowd of players and into the net to make it 3-2 to Ashmoor with minutes to play.

There was still more action left as Bishop was adjudged to have fouled intentionally outside the circle, and player-coach Dinnie was harshly sin-binned for his query to the official. Rich Ashworth blocked the penalty corner though and Ashmoor saw out the game for a really hard-earned three points.

Defender Cullen Turner was Ashmoor's standout Pallex Player of the Match amongst a large number of excellent performances.

Ashmoor remain in third place but closed the gap to just a point behind the two sides above them, who both drew. The EHL takes a break with no Conference matches this weekend.

Games then resume on November 2 when Ashmoor will travel to top of the table Chichester in a mouth-watering encounter.

Ashmoor's Boys Under 18 team were left disappointed with the withdrawal of Clifton Robinsons from their England Hockey U18 Cup match. However, Ashmoor are granted an automatic passage into the second round, due to be played on November 9.