The Northampton Town youth team travelled to meet MK Dons in the EFL Youth Alliance on Saturday.
Jacob Ballinger and Thomas Scott scored for the Cobblers in a narrow 3-2 defeat with a sending off early in the second half proving pivotal for Jon Brady's side.
"We were 1-0 up after fifty minutes but after we had a player sent off MK Dons came back at us and it was a bit of an uphill struggle for us from there," he said.
"We've been on a fantastic run but we weren't quite at our best today,"