ALEX Mettam produced another man-of-the match performance as Bracknell Bees won 3-0 at Sheffield to achieve a rare shut-out, writes Dave Wright.

The net-minder, who had conceded seven goals to Peterborough the previous Sunday, was back to his best last Thursday evening, keeping out every one of the Steeldogs’ 36 goal attempts.

Ironically, Bees had also kept a clean-sheet when beating Sheffield more than three years ago with the same scoreline.

They had already lost twice at home to them this season, but it was a different story in Yorkshire, where Bracknell looked a lot more sold in defence than they had shown against Peterborough, Bees were also given the boost of a goal in the eighth minute when Luka Basic finished off a move involving Josh Smith and Scott Spearing.

Smith got the second on 26:39 with Olegs Lascenko and David Gaborcik providing the assists.

And at 35:08 Lascenko made it 3-0 from a chance set up by Smith and Basic.

For a brief time during the second period Bees had both Krystof Kafan and Josh Tetlow in the sin-bin, but the three Bees left on the ice managed to keep the Steeldogs at bay.

Bracknell followed their first shut-out of the year by registering their first home league win this season when defeating Manchester Phoenix 3-2 on Saturday.

It took them 14 seconds faster than Thursday to open their account thanks to an excellent individual effort from Gaborcik.

The second goal was of equal quality, with Basic powering through the middle, laying the puck off to Lascenko on his left, before touching home his pass. Smith was also involved in the sweeping move.

After Manchester had pulled a power-play goal back through Roman Malinik on 16:12, teenager Smith completed a man-of-the-match performance by scoring Bees’ third on 47-36 with Gaborcik providing the assist.

With Bees having gone close to increasing their lead on several occasions, Manchester pulled a goal back through Robin Kovar on 49:15 to set up a tense last 10 minutes, but Mettam and his defence stood firm to secure a long over-due home victory.

With player-coach Lukas Smith and Martin Pavlicek both missing, Bees were up against it at in-form Hull on Sunday, but they showed commendable resistance before going down 4-1 to third-placed Pirates, who were making it four wins in eight days.

Andrej Themar, the league’s leading marksman, enhanced his reputation by scoring on 5:41 and 11:00 before setting up further goals for Dominic Osman (26:29) and Stanislav Lascek (54:14).

Smith, scoring for the third game in succession, replied for the Bees on 24:47 after being set-up by James Galazzi.

Gaborcik took his side’s man-of-the-match award.

Bees, who have relegated Manchester back to bottom of the table, visit leaders Telford Tigers on Saturday (6pm) before hosting seventh-placed Swindon Wildcats at The Hive on Sunday evening (6pm).

Children will be admitted for free if accompanied by an adult.