Bison back to winning ways

BASINGSTOKE, UK – In November, the Bison enjoyed a run of six straight wins, but that was then followed by only one win in their next seven games.
The Herd could just not buy a win at home as lowly Telford and Peterborough both won in the Bison barn.
However, that has all turned around as they currently enjoying a three game winning streak.
Top rated netminder and Recent signing from Peterborough Stephen Wall inspired his new side to victory in the first game a 6-1 success at the Link Centre in Swindon.
Wall produced some huge saves in the first period to make sure the score was 0-0 at the first buzzer
That provided the purr-fect platform for the Bison against the Wildcats with their biggest road win of the season.
Viktor Kubenko, Marcel Petran and Joe Miller all grabbed braces in that game to lift the mood in the camp after the previous days disappointment of 5-2 reverse against Peterborough.
“The Peterborough game was probably our worst game of the season. We had not had a game in 16 days and did not think it would hurt us, but it did.
  “In the Swindon game everyone was sharp and everyone played their part in a great win, “ said Bison player/coach Steve Moria.
That made it two road wins on the bounce for the Bison, but their home woes were now three losses.
An end to that run did not look promising when league leaders Guildford were next in town boosting a winning streak of 13.
Wall was unavailable for the game, so Matt Colcough who had been the starter for the most of the season was given back the job, with local teenager Connor Standing and hopefully a future Bison star taking over the back-up role.
The youngster so nearly ended up with a baptism of fire when Colclough was hit on his collarbone during warm-up and still had the mark where the puck hit him at the end of the game.
“I tell players to shoot low in warm-up, but they go for the top corners and for sure it would have been one hell of debut for Connor,” said Moria.
Luckily for the Bison, Colclough was able to take his place between the pipes and turned in a super performance saving a great one-one-one from Flames top Brit David Longstaff when the game was tied at 1-1 at the time.
The Herd a minute later took the lead from Daniel Volrab as he added to Miller’s earlier strike which had cancelled out Matt Towe’s opener for Guildford.
The second session saw Craig Tribe and Nicky Chinn score two quick goals to make it 4-1 to Basingstoke – resulting in the Flames calling a time-out.
After that the visitors were well on top, but Colclough and defenseman Daniel Harris blocking with his body kept their goals tally down to just one a Nathan Rempel shorthanded marker.
It set up a tense final session where the first goal was always going to win the contest and that proved to be the case as a super strike from Ollie Bronnimann wrapped up a 5-2 win.
“It was a great win and for once we matched up lines. I made sure I was out against Longstaff as he is such a big player for the Flames and I wanted to keep him quite,” said Moria.
Ironically the Bison played in their road black shirts for the win as the following night they switch to their white shirts as Peterborough have special cup shirts they wear in EPL Cup games.
The Bison smarting from a Boxing Day defeat looking to be heading for another loss as they trailed 2-0 after Ondrej Lauko and Luke Ferrara had scored.
However, the new belief in the camp saw them storm back in the game played on January 2 with Miller and Volrab equalising.
 
The Herd then took the lead from Ollie Bronnimann, only for Jeff Glowa to level and with no further scoring the game went into overtime.
That still failed to split the teams so the game went to penalty shots and in the best of three shots Lauko and Volrab scored to send the shoot-out into sudden death.
Maris Ziedins effort was saved by Colclough before Marcel Petran sealed the win with the tenth shot of the shoot-out.
“Peterborough is an ugly rink and they took advantage of it early on and if we had played that game two weeks earlier we would have found a way to lose, but there is a belief now and even at 2-0 I felt we were in with a chance,” said Moria.
In the shoot-out the Bison went with the three goal scorers meaning for once Moria who has a good strike rate even if his shot was saved last time out for once did not go in the first three shooters.
“I wanted to go with the guys who has scored and then I felt Marcel has been scoring a few penalty shots in training so I put him up next and I was fifth, but luckily it never came to me,” joked Moria.
The Bison will now hope to continue their winning streak when Bracknell visit at the weekend and then in strange twist in the fixture list they travel to Peterborough again the following night.
A good run could easily see the Herd climb up into fourth in the standings which they are only currently four points away from.
Only time will tell, but with three months of the regular season still to go anything is possible.
Contact the author Graham.Merry@Prohockeynews.com