BASINGSTOKE, UK- Winning is becoming a habit at the moment for the Basingstoke Bison as they extended their victorious streak to seven games last weekend, after beating the Peterborough Phantoms back-to-back. So, confidence in the camp is high ahead of their biggest game of the season so far against the visiting Sheffield Steeldogs on Saturday. The Bison know that a win will book them a place in the EPL Cup semi-final and erase the bad memories of last season, when Basingstoke’s early season form made them favourites for a last four spot, only for an injury crisis to dash their hopes. On paper, this looks an easy game for Basingstoke and even more so after the Herd won 12-5 at Ice Sheffield earlier in the season. That came as shock to both coaches and Bison player/coach Steve Moria is expecting a much tougher game when the sides meet on Saturday. Since the last encounter, the Steeldogs have drafted in defenseman Kriss Grundmanis from Hull and are also hoping Andrew Payette will make his debut.
Last weekend, the Steeldogs proved they are no push-overs as they ran Slough and Manchester close. That is the reason the Basingstoke player/coach is taking nothing for granted. “Sheffield are a hard working team and have a top young goalie in Ben Bowns. They are not going to make things easy for us, but we know that a win will see us make the semi-finals of the cup and that is our aim from the game,” Moria said. Of course, for Sheffield, just getting out of the Steel City with all the snow that has fallen on Yorkshire this week will be their first major obstacle of the weekend. On Sunday, the Bison travel to Telford who last weekend produced one of the shock results of the season beating EPL league leaders Guildford in overtime. So once again Moria expects a stiff test. “Tom Watkins has got his team playing really well for him and I think the first time we went there we caught them on an off night and we easily won 6-0. I don’t think that will be the case this time around,” Moria said. Last weekend, Basingstoke enjoyed a 6-3 home success and a 6-5 road win against Peterborough. Slovak forward Viktor Kubenko was the star-of-the-show as he soared to the top of the club’s goal scoring charts after netting six times pasting his fellow countryman Ondrej Lauko in the process. Kubenko flashed the goal light twice in the home triumph and then netted his second four goal tally of the season on Sunday, which included the opener after 13 seconds. “Viktor was just going past players as if they did not exist all night on Sunday and every time he got the puck I thought he was going to score,” Moria said. Kubenko’s fast start in Peterborough was the first time in eight games that the Herd have opened the scoring in game. However, amazingly in the previous six matches after conceding first they went onto win all the games and twice came back from 2-0 during that six game spell. Contact the author Graham.Merry@Prohockeynews.com
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