THE BASINGSTOKE Bison extended their winning run at home to 12 games as they beat visiting league leaders Milton Keynes Lightning in a sudden death penalty shoot-out.

In a tense finish, the best-of-three shots could still not separate the sides as each team netted once with Steve Moria scoring for the Bison.
That meant with nails bitten down to the quick, it went to sudden death. Both sides missed their next shots, before the Herd’s Ollie Bronnimann hit the back of the net.

That left MK player/coach Nick Poole having to score and as he tried to fire the puck past Tom Annetts all he found was the goalie’s pads which left the Bison and their fans to celebrate a great victory.

Earlier in the contest, the visitors opened the better and took the lead at 3:40 on the powerplay, thanks to a sweet blue line strike from Adam Carr.
The Bison equalised thanks to some good work from Ondrej Lauko and Nicky Chinn as they set-up Moria to score in the 16th minute.

MK re-took the lead with a second to spare before the first period buzzer, thanks to Lukas Zatopek fired in from the blue line.
Basingstoke tied the game again just four seconds after a powerplay expired, as defenceman Sam Oakford scored his first goal of the season at 39 minutes dead.
The final period saw both sides have their chances, but with no further scoring the game went into overtime.

In the final minute of the extra session saw Tony Redmond force a good save from Hollyhead and Mindy Kieras saw his rocket shot come off the goalie’s pads.
The visitors replied as Monir Kalgoum and Nick Poole linked up well and only a smart stop from Annetts denied Lewis Christie with 13.7 seconds left.

That proved to be the final chance of overtime so the game was decided on penalty shots just to add to the drama of the evening.

See Monday’s Gazette for a full report and reaction.