Baffins Milton Rovers’ Hampshire Senior Cup dream over after penalty shoot-out defeat against Aldershot

Dillon North (blue) saw his penalty saved as Baffins were beaten by Aldershot in the quarter-finals of the Hampshire Senior Cup

Their dream of reaching the semi-final of the Hampshire Senior Cup for the first time in the club’s history was dashed with a 5-4 spot-kicks loss against four tiers higher Aldershot last night.

That followed a 1-1 draw at the PMC Stadium where an own goal had cancelled out Aldershot’s first half opener.

Baffins had beaten Stoneham and Andover Town in the Wessex League Cup on penalties since the turn of the year, and had also knocked out higher tier Lymington Town in the county cup.

During those games Rovers had only missed one spot-kick while keeper Roux Hardcastle had produced saves in all of them to help his side progress.

Dillon North saw his penalty - the first of last night’s shoot-out - saved by Lloyd Thomas but sudden death was required after Brad Manning fired Aldershot’s fourth spot-kick against the bar.

But the National League side - fielding predominantly an Under-23 side - progressed to the last four when Liam Brewer saw Baffins’ sixth penalty of the evening saved.

Assistant manager Matt Jones, taking charge as boss Danny Thompson was away on holiday, told The News: ‘I was really pleased with our performance.

‘We were more than worthy of the draw. In the second half we should have gone on to win it.’

Kelvin Robinson and Brewer both broke through one on one with Thomas, while Tom Vincent and Charlie Oakwell went close with headers from corners.’

Baffins were without cup tied trio Dec Seiden, Josh Rose and Dan Aitken, the suspended Rob Evans and the injured Jason Parish and Dan Wood. Of those, the first four come back into contention for this weekend’s home Wessex Premier game with Shaftesbury.