THE Basingstoke Bison kept alive their hopes of making the final four of the English Premier League Cup, while ending the Swindon Wildcats chances.

The Herd skated to a 4-1 victory on home ice and took the lead in the fifth minute as great work from the impressive Rene Jarolin set-up Aaron Connolly to score.

The home side should have extended their lead, when given a two man advantage on the powerplay, but in the end it was Swindon’s Jonas Hoog who came closest to scoring.

Then just before the buzzer, Tomas Hiadlovsky produced a full length pad save to deny Tomasz Malasinki and then seconds later did the same again to stop Ryan Aldridge equalising.

The second session saw the Bison take over the contest and Stevie Lyle had to be at his best to stop Shaun Thompson.

He then produced a great catch from Tomas Karpov after great set-up play from Vanya Antonov.

The Herd then doubled their lead, after Neil Liddiard coughed the puck up to man of the match Ciaran Long and his pass found Jarolin to score at 26:12.

Referee Dave Cloutman did an excellent job to make sure the game did not boil over, as there was certainly an undercurrent to the game, no doubt because of the penalty filled encounter last time around.

The Herd’s final powerplay of the night, saw them make it 3-0 thanks to a lovely strike from Long.

Soon after, Swindon’s Jonas Hoog broke free and only a great save from Hiadlovsky stopped him opening the visitor’s account.

The final period saw the home side still have the better chances and a lovely move saw Antonov and Connolly inter change passes, before Lyle denied Antonov with a pad save.

Then with four minutes remaining, Swindon finally broke Hiadlovsky’s shut-out, as Steve Whitfield’s shot from the blue line, found its way through a screen of players.

This spurred the visitors on and Sam Bullas fired just wide. With just over two minutes left, Swindon pulled their goalie for the extra skater.

It was to prove their downfall as with 20.5 seconds left Aldridge batted down a Kurt Reynolds clearance, which Long stole from him and he unselfishly passed to Jarolin to slot into the empty net to secure the win.

Tonight, the Bison travel north to Hull for a game which has a 5.30pm face-off.