Bison weekend roundup

BASINGSTOKE UK:  After their latest weekend of action, the Basingstoke Bison are now known as the English Premier League Comeback Kings. In both games the Herd trailed by two and three goals margins, before storming back to record 4-3 victories over the Sheffield Scimitars and Bracknell Bees.
On Saturday night, they were 3-1 down, before grabbing an overtime success, while on Sunday they produced an even more impressive comeback from 3-0 down in Bracknell, to claim a regulation win. Against the Bees, the Herd looked out of sorts early on in this derby game, as the home side with just one win in five, got a great start thanks to a brace from Jaroslav Cesky and a single from Ryan Watt. Bees’ player/coach Claude Dumas then had a great chance to make it 4-0 with a shorthanded strike, but the miss proved costly as the Bison then opened their account from Joe Ciccarello before the first hooter.
The second period saw Basingstoke dominate as leading scorer Ondrej Lauko reduced the Bracknell lead to one. Both sides then lost an import as Cesky was dismissed on a match penalty for high sticks on Ciccarello, who missed the reminder of the game with a nasty cut to his face. Basingstoke failed to score with the man advantage, but the momentum had now shifted and the final 20 minutes saw Ollie Bronnimann, with his third goal of the weekend and Steve Moria secure the Herd’s fifth win in six EPL starts.
So making it the Herd’s best league start since 1999, when they finished second in the old British National League. However, despite the Bison victory, the Bees still have bragging rights over their local rivals with 17 wins to 15 with one game tied in 33 league meetings in the past 21 years.
On Saturday night, in a fast and furious game in Basingstoke against the Sheffield, the Bison took just 48 seconds to score from Bronnimann. However, thanks to some strange penalty calls a well drilled Sheffield outfit took the lead 2-1 by the first break, thanks to Joakim Millqvist and Robert Farmer. The visitors then added a third from Tom Squires as Scims’ Finnish shot stopper Pasi Raitanen continued to frustrate the home forwards as he made 55 saves on the night. The Bison kept up the pressure sending the game into overtime, thanks to Bronnimann’s second and Lauko’s first, after great spade work from man-of-the-match Nicky Chinn. The home side had all the chances in the extra period, with the EPL’s leading scorer Slovak sniper Lauko once again being the hero with the winner at 63:29.
“This weekend the players have showed great character in coming back in both games. Our plan now is to stop falling behind as we will not be able to do this in every game,” said Bison player/coach Moria.
Next weekend, Basingstoke face a quick re-match with Bracknell on Saturday, which will also see the retirement of the number 12 jersey of Canadian Don Yewchin, the founding father of the Hampshire club.
Then on Sunday, the Herd face another derby game with their first clash of the season with the Slough Jets.
Contact the author graham.merry@prohockeynews.com