THE Basingstoke Bison kept alive their hopes of a semi-final place in the National Cup with a 6-1 victory over local rivals the Bracknell Bees.

When the Berkshire rivals last buzzed into town they were easy winners, but this time it was the Herd who had the upper hand and took the sting out of the visitors with a great second period.

The Bison welcomed back Stuart Mogg to their line-up, but were still minus Ryan Sutton and Sam Brooks.

The opening session was a scrappy affair, with the Herd taking the lead at 8:23 from man of the match Roman Malinik.

He was released into the end zone by Dan Scott and when Harvey Stead missed a check on the Czech, he skated into score.

The home side made it 2-0 on a double powerplay as Scott and Tomas Karpov exchanged passes along the blue line, before Scott ripped a shot home.

The second session was when the Bison turned on the style and if not for the Bracknell goalie Alex Mettam, they would have scored more than the three they did.

Their first goal came at 27:55, as Aaron Connolly broke away, but was hauled down by Stead.

However, he was still able to feed Grant Rounding whose shot was saved and Karpov followed up with the rebound.

Within a minute, Scott with a bullet from the blue line had made it 4-0.

At this point, Bracknell called a time out, but it did not help, as within a minute they had conceded a fifth with Hallam Wilson scoring at the back post.

After this Josh Smith, Ivan Antonov and Aaron Connolly all had good chances to add to the tally, while Rounding was sent flying into the boards by Callum Best forcing him out the final period.

The last session of the game, saw Dan Weller-Evans take over in the Bison goal from Dean Skinns and the home side added a sixth goal This saw Wilson score again as he picked up the puck just inside the blue line and with some clever stick work slotted home.

After this the game got a lot more chippy and Jan Bendik somehow escaped a penalty for an awful hit on Wilson.

Then Josh Martin sprayed goalie Weller-Evans with ice, which again should have earned a penalty from referee Dan Boardman.

However, Martin was in the sin bin seconds later, after a fight with Josh Smith, which earned both four minutes for roughing.

This was quickly followed by Tomas Karpov being helped off the ice, after a hit from Danny Ingoldsby, which saw no penalty and he took no further part in the game.

Within a minute, an altercation at the Bees bench, saw Bison’s Joe Baird and Bracknell’s Jared Lane earn a two minute rest in the sin bin.

With just over six minutes left, Bracknell scored their only goal from Martin with a shot over the shoulder of Weller-Evans from the right wing.

After this, the home side played down the clock, knocking the puck around to take the victory.

The Herd have no game today and are back in league action on Saturday, when Streatham are the visitors.