THE Basingstoke Bison suffered a heartbreaking loss in Guildford on Wednesday night, as Matt Towe scored the winning goal 10 seconds from time.

The 4-3 loss to the Flames dented the chances the Herd taking second spot away from their Surrey rivals and they are now five points behind them with one more game left in the series between the teams.

The Bison had Andy Melachrino back in their line-up, but Aaron Connolly, Matt Selby, Brendan Baird and Grant Rounding were all ruled out.

The first period of the contest was a high scoring one, and the home side took the lead at 3:43, after Vladimir Kutny scored on Guildford’s first of seven powerplays on the night from close range.

The Herd hit back and were soon level as leading goal scorer Ciaran Long made the most of a pass from Joe Baird.

The visitors then took the lead much to the delight of their travelling fans as Joe Greener slotted home past James Hadfield at 12:20.

A super strike from Slovak sniper Kutny put the Flames levelled again and then man-of-the-match Towe scored his first of the night after Marcus Kristoffersson won the puck.

This gave the home side a 3-2 lead at the end of the first period after a very entertaining opening 20 minutes.

The second season saw no goals, but did see the Flames have three powerplays and the pipework was pinged a few times.

On the final penalty of the period, Bison’s import defenceman Miroslav Vantroba also picked a 10 minute misconduct as he showed his displeasure as he took a third trip to the sin bin.

The Bison got a dream start to the final session as Joe Rand tied the game again at 41:54, as he finished a move which involved Doug Sheppard and Greener.

Then as the tension grew and it looked like a game between these local rivals would once again go into overtime.

Towe had other ideas and scored the winner as he skated around the net and fired in at 59:50.

The Bison called a time out and pulled their netminder, but there was no time to get an equaliser.

The Herd will now look to bounce back to winning ways when they face a visit from the Sheffield Steeldogs on Saturday (face-off 6.30pm).