THE Basingstoke Bison are just two points off the top of the English Premier League table after staging a remarkable comeback to beat hosts the Guildford Flames at the Spectrum last night.

Tomas Karpov was the hero, scoring the game-winning goal in overtime as the Herd emerged 4-3 winners, having trailed 3-1 with less than five minutes of regulation time to play.

Karpov scored the only goal of the first period, assisted by Aaron Connolly at 6:54, but Guildford levelled the match at 27:33, Jozef Kohut scoring from Paul Dixon and Milos Melicherik.

That was the way the score stayed until the final period, when the Bison ran into penalty trouble. Joe Baird was handed a 5+game penalty for boarding at 46:36 and the Flames made full use of the powerplay, scoring twice.

Kohut put them ahead at 46:53, with David Savage extending the lead to 3-1 at 48:52 – but the Herd refused to give in.

As time ticked away, it seemed as if the Flames would get the win, but Joe Greener gave them hope at 55:42, assisted by Doug Sheppard and Kurt Reynolds.

The equalising goal followed just under a minute later, Joe Rand finding the net assisted by Miroslav Vantroba and Reynolds at 56:40.

There was no further scoring before the end of regulation time but the Bison secured maximum points at 63:14, Karpov scoring his second of the game assisted by Rand and Greener.

The victory made it a four-point weekend for the Bison and leaves them one point behind the second-placed Flames, with leaders the Manchester Phoenix a further point ahead.