BASINGSTOKE, UK- For the second week running Slovak sniper Ondrej Lauko scored the overtime winner for the Basingstoke Bison to cap a great come from behind victory.
If the comeback against Milton Keynes on home ice had been impressive, the Herd excelled themselves last Sunday against the Manchester Phoenix at the Altrincham Ice Dome.
The visitors were staring defeat in the face as they trailed 2-1 with two minutes left.
Their chances of victory then looked to have vanished as former Phoenix defenseman Carl Graham was assessed a clipping penalty.
However, the Herd managed to win the puck and work it to Ricky Skene, whose shot found the back of the net via the leg of Manchester defenseman Pavel Gomenyuk.
That gave the Bison Brit his first goal of the season and tie the game with 20 seconds.
Basingstoke were still not out of the woods as they still had to kill off the remainder of the Graham which still lasted 27 seconds into overtime.
Once that was over, Lauko took a pass from club captain Nicky Chinn and scored the winner with 53 seconds of the extra period gone.
Earlier in the game, Marcus Kristofferson had scored a goal in each of the first two periods, while Victor Kubenko had tied the game at the first break.
Once again hometown boy between the pipes Dean Skinns was outstanding as he made 44 saves on his way to back-to-back man-of-the-match awards.
The superb victory on Sunday followed hot on heels of success the previous night against the same opposition.
Once again Kristofferson opened the scoring which was cancelled out by a superb Bison equaliser.
A brilliant individual rush at net by Tony Redmond left Kubenko with a simple tap-in.
The second session saw the Bison really dominate, but somehow they only managed to score once from the stick of Steve Moria.
In the final 20 minutes, the EPL league leaders went looking for an equaliser in, but a Mindy Kieras blue line blast and an Ollie Bronnimann strike made sure Basingstoke were 4-1 winners.
“This was a great team performance everyone has bought into the system it shows what this team can do, “ said club captain Chinn after Saturday’s victory.
As well as great performance by Skinns between the pipes, the other stand-out player was Tony Redmond, who man marked Manchester’s leading points scorer Tony Hand out of the game.
That in turn left snipers Kristofferson and Curtis Huppe starved of offensive bullets all night and went a long way to making the victory possible.
Of course on Sunday night with Manchester being the home side and having the second line change that tactic went out the window.
However, the Bison still managed to great the result for what has to be their best weekend of the EPL campaign so far.
“It was a great weekend and in Manchester we took the belief from the previous night and never gave up and came away with the great win,” said Bison player/coach Steve Moria.
This weekend, Basingstoke turn their attentions back to trying to book a place in the final four of the EPL Cup, as they face local rivals Swindon Wildcats back-to-back.
Taking a glance at the standings this looks an easy doubleheader on paper, but the Wiltshire side can often be a tough nut to crack on home ice and with ex-boss Ryan Aldridge in charge he for sure will be keen to put over his former team.
The Bison know a repeat of last weekend’s four pointer should be enough for them to make the semi-finals.
They only have one injury worry coming in those games and that is with British defenseman Sam Oakford who sat out the second half of the away Manchester game
Contact the author Graham.Merry@Prohockeynews.com
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