TONY Hand’s Manchester Phoenix fought back twice on Sunday night only to be denied by the lottery of a penalty shootout against Guildford.

Phoenix, who ran out 8-3 winners the previous night at basement side Bracknell Bees, needed a late Hand strike to send the game into overtime.

Flames’ David Longstaff opened the scoring in the first period but Shaun Thompson quickly brought the home side level with a fine individual goal.

Former Phoenix star Marcus Kristofferson then restored the visitors' lead before the break with a powerplay goal and extended it further after the interval with another powerplay strike.

Robin Kovar reduced the deficit with a deflected finish midway through the middle frame before the floodgates opened in the third period.

First James Archer netted the equalising goal and 20 seconds later the in-form Frantisek Bakrlik netted Phoenix’s fourth to complete the turnaround.

Their lead was short-lived as two quick goals from the visitors turned the tie on its head again as firstly Ben Campbell spun around the Phoenix defence to level before Kristofferson netted his hat-trick goal.

With the game going away from them, Phoenix laid siege to the Flames goal and finally got their reward with less than seven minutes to play as player/coach Hand netted on the powerplay from an Adam Walker feed to tie the game at 5-5.

There was no further scoring in overtime, in spite of a Phoenix powerplay chance, leaving the game to be decided by a penalty shootout where a lone strike from Guildford’s Vladimir Kutny sealed the extra point.