Another mixed brace of games for Bison Thump Bees, fall to Hull

BASINGSTOKE UK: The Bison had another mixed weekend even if they were playing the bottom two sides in the EPL.

Having crushed the Bracknell Bees 10-2 on home ice on Saturday night, 24 hours later two goals in the finals fours of the their game in Hull condemned them to a 3-2 loss.

Flying Finn Tommi Laine scored both goals including the game winner shorthanded just 73 seconds before the final buzzer.

Hull gave a debut to former Latvian international Martin Raitums who picked up man of the match as did his opposite number Tomas Hiadlovsky.

The Bison led after one period thanks to Tomas Karpov and it was only in the final session that the home side equalised from Pasi Salonen.

The Herd took the lead again eight minutes from time as captain Aaron Connolly netted, before Laine’s late brace won it for the Pirates.

It was their first regulation win of the season.

The previous night, the Bison collected their 10th straight home win which equalled the club’s EPL record with a massive 10-2 win over their arch local rivals the Bracknell Bees.

The Bison took the lead thanks to man of the match Alan Lack, before Bracknell’s man of the match Scott Spearing levelled.

After this the home side took control and led 4-1 by the first buzzer as Karpov, Shaun Thompson and Ryan Watt all found the back of the net.

Two further goals for the home side in the middle session from Ciaran Long and Connolly saw the end of Tom Annetts as he was hooked for Alex Mettam.

He did well to start with, but then shipped four goals in the final session as Lack scored and then Joe Greener assisted by Ryan Sutton picked up his first ever senior point.

This saw the Bison swap their goalies as back-up Dan Weller-Evans got some home ice time and he gave up just one goal to Jan Bendik.

The home side wrapped up the scoring with two more goals from Thompson and Lack.

The victory booked the Bison a place in the final four of the EPL Cup.

“I was very pleased with the way we played against Bracknell and in Hull for the first 40 minutes we were the better team, but we were outplayed in the final session and this lost us the game,” said Bison head coach Doug Sheppard.

This weekend, the Bison have just one game at home to the Milton Keynes Lightning and both teams are locked together in the title race so it is a big game for both sides.