THE Basingstoke Bison will go back to the top of the English Premier League, if they can beat the Guildford Flames in this afternoon’s game which starts at 4pm.

This was after the Herd beat their local rivals the Bracknell Bees 3-2 on Sunday night and leaders Peterborough Phantoms lost against the Milton Keynes Lightning.

The Bison added Alex Sampford to their line-up for the visit of the Bracknell Bees, so the home side could play four lines of forward.

The contest opened with the Herd dominating the game, but they were unable to carve out clear cut chances.

The first penalty of the game, saw Bracknell defenceman Lewis Turner trip Ciaran Long.

The home side made full use of the extra man, as Long beat Bees netminder Alex Mettam with a nice wrist shot at 8:29.

The Herd went looking for a second goal and Joe Baird’s blue line shot was saved and then player/coach Doug Sheppard fired just wide.

Bracknell import defenceman Jan Bendik then carved out a rare chance for the visitors, but shot wide and then home netminder Joe Baston was called into action to save from Alex Barker, which was one of only two shots from the visitors in the opening period.

As the first buzzer sounded, the Bison deserved to be more than 1-0 ahead.

After the interval, the Bees had more sting to their offence and they were helped by a couple of powerplays.

During the second one of these, Bendik produced a great interception to deny Aaron Connolly the chance to score shorthanded.

Then soon after, the Bison’s Ryan Sutton fired just wide and team mate Ryan Watt was denied by a good save.

Bracknell levelled on their third powerplay of the night, thanks to Milan Kostourek as he fired in from just inside the blue line at 33:13.

The final session saw the Bison quickly out of the blocks, as Rene Jarolin netted at the back post, just 74 seconds into the period.

A minute later, the Bees were given a powerplay, but disaster struck as Bendik’s full blooded shot was blocked by Declan Balmer’s shin pads, which sent the puck flying up the rink towards the Bees goal.

In a foot race to the puck, Bison’s Long beat Bendik and then with a superb back handed finish scored shorthanded to make it 3-1.

After this both sides had chances and Baston produced a great point save to deny Ivan Antonov, before the Bees pulled a goal back as Barker smashed home Kostourek’s rebound five minutes from time.

This set up a frantic finale and with 54 seconds left, Bracknell pulled their netminder for the extra skater.

They had a couple of chances in the final minute, but were unable to take the game into overtime.

Bison’s solid defenceman Kurt Reynolds picked up their man of the match and the lively Thomas Beesley won the Bracknell award.