THE Basingstoke Bison recorded their first series lock-out for six years, as they beat the Bracknell Bees 5-0.

The home side were minus five players Joe Miller, Joe Rand, Dan Davies, Aaron Connolly and Declan Balmer, so gave debuts to Bison under-20 stars Kyle Goddard and Paul Petts.

The Bison had very much the better of the opening session and in the eighth minute Tomas Karpov so nearly scored the opening goal of the contest, but his shot came back off the post.

However, on the first powerplay of the night the Herd opened their account, as Karpov’s blue line shot was deflected past a helpless Alex Mettam by Bison’s man of the match Vanya Antonov.

Soon after, Bracknell had their first man advantage and during this Antonov was released by a lovely back hand pass from Rene Jarolin.

As the former Bees forward lined up to shoot, he was hauled down by Harvey Stead, and much to the delight of the home fans the Bison were awarded penalty shot.

Antonov stepped up and took and with a nice finish put the puck over the left shoulder of Mettam to make it 2-0.

As the first period came to a close, Jarolin skated all the way into the slot, but was denied. The rebound fell to Matt Towalski, who returned it with interest from just inside the blue line, for a three goal lead at the first buzzer.

The second session was a tame affair and never really got going as both sides had a number of powerplays.

Derek Roehl came closest of anyone to scoring, as he fired wide when released by Jarolin early on in the session, and then forced the save of the period from Mettam, after an excellent feed from Ciaran Long.

The Bison wasted no time in the final period making the game safe, as Jarolin netted on the back hand at 41:56.

Then two minutes later, Grant Rounding scored a lovely solo goal as he slotted under Mettam to make it 5-0.

The Herd kept looking for more goals and when David Gaborcik passed to Karpov only a smart save denied him. Daniel Lackey then also tested the Bracknell shot stopper.

Bracknell’s man of the match Shaun Thompson then forced Tomas Hiadlovsky in to a smart save. In the final two minutes Bees’ James Galazzi could not believe his bad luck when his shot came back off the post.

In the end, Hiadlovsky faced 23 shots, as he recorded his third shut-out of this campaign and his fifth in total in a Bison shirt.

The Herd have no game today, they are next in action at home this coming Saturday when the Hull Pirates are the visitors.