THE Basingstoke Bison suffered a heartbreaking 3-2 defeat at the hands of title rivals the Peterborough Phantoms, as the visitors scored the winning goal four minutes from time.

In an excellent contest from start to finish, the Herd got to a dream start as man of the match Stuart Mogg scored after 29 seconds from the high slot area after a nice pass from Rene Jarolin.

This was after the defenceman had been denied with the first shot of the game after only 11 seconds.

After this it was an even contest, but both sides failed to carve out clear cut chances.

The first penalty of the game saw Millan Baranyk depart for boarding, after an awful check on Jarolin, which left the import down on the ice.

He recovered to take his place on the powerplay unit, but the Bison created very little.

The visitors started to increase their pressure and Jon Baston did well to deny Craig Scott with a nice catch and then blocked Cameron McGiffin’s shot.

The Herd replied as Alan Lack and Daniel Lackey forced pad saves from Phantoms’ goalie Janis Auzlins in quick succession.

As the period came to an end, Baston produced great stops from Lloyd Gibson and then Darius Pliskauskas.

The Bison were quickly out of the blocks in the second session, as Karpov forced Auzins into action after only 38 seconds.

The Phantoms then equalised, even if Baston produced a great save to deny Gibson. Pliskauskas slotted home the rebound on the back hand at 21:29.

Soon after, Peterborough nearly scored again after a goal mouth scramble.

The Herd then hit back with some good pressure and Auzins had to be at his best to stop Lack.

The first penalty of the period saw the Bison produce a text book powerplay, which saw Aaron Connolly touch home a Rene Jarolin pass at 25:58.

A goal mouth scramble soon after, saw Long and Matt Towalski both go close.

The Bison continued to have the better of the session, but the Phantoms levelled again with their second of the night.

It was a very fortunate goal credited to Will Weldon from Scott Robson's blue line shot, which deflected off him and left Baston no chance.

The period ended with the Bison on the powerplay again after Robert Ferrara departed for holding Shaun Thompson and Craig Scott’s outburst towards referee Dave Cloutman earned Peterborough’s top Brit a 10 minute misconduct penalty.

The final session saw the Herd have the upper hand early on, as the all Brit line of Lackey, Thompson and Towalski piled on the pressure from one excellent shift and then Jarolin was denied twice in one of his shifts.

With the release of Scott from his 10 minute rest in the sin bin, the Phantoms offence improved again and it looked like the game was heading to overtime.

However, a break away from Pliskauskas saw him fire the puck into the chest of Baston, as he was slashed by Declan Balmer.

The Bison defenceman headed to the sin bin and from the ensuing powerplay man of the match Tom Norton ghosted in at the back post to score at 56:26.

The Herd tried to net an equaliser in the final few minutes and Auzins produced a brilliant save to deny Joe Greener, after he broke through the Phantoms defence.

With 73 seconds left the home side pulled their goalie for the extra skater and Scott so nearly scored into the empty, but it was blocked by Ciaran Long.

The loss saw the Bison’s lead at the top of the English Premier League cut to three points.

They will hope to bounce back to winning ways this evening (5.30pm) when they face a tough road game at the Sheffield Steeldogs.