THE Basingstoke Bison suffered the heartache of losing a penalty shoot-out at the home of the Peterborough Phantoms in the Autumn Trophy.

The home side took the lead in the fifth minute from Darius Pliskauskas, but the Herd were level by the first buzzer, after Grant Rounding converted a pass from Kurt Reynolds.

The Bison then scored two unanswered goals in the second session, the first from Aaron Connolly, came on a two-man powerplay advantage.

They then made it 3-1 as Roman Malinik netted with helpers from Connolly and Antonov.

Peterborough took 40 seconds of the final period to reduce the lead to one, as Ales Padelek scored on the powerplay With 91 seconds left and still trailing by a goal, Peterborough pulled their netminder Euan King.

This paid dividends as a Leigh Jamieson blast tied the game at 58:38.

With no more goals, the game went into overtime, which once again failed to split the teams.

The result was then decided on a penalty shoot-out.

The Phantoms went first with Padelek, who was unable to beat Bison man of the match Dean Skinns and Bison captain Connolly was then also denied.

Pliskauskas was next to shoot and Skinns made a nice glove save followed by Dan Davies who saw his effort saved by King.

Peterborough’s third shooter was Owen Griffiths and he found the back of the net.

So it left Malinik needing to score to send the game into sudden death penalty shots, but his shot was saved, to leave the Phantoms 4-3 winners.

This was the first of two games between the sides to decide who will win Group One of Autumn Trophy and who will finish second.

The last one being in Basingstoke on Saturday December 9, when a victory in 60 minutes for the Bison would see them win the group, while anything else means the Phantoms take top spot.

Tonight, the Herd return to league action when the London Raiders are the visitors. They narrowly lost 3-2 to Swindon last night.