A FULL blooded local derby encounter saw the Basingstoke Bison beat their arch rivals the Guildford Flames 4-2 to keep up their hopes of a top three finish.

For this game the Herd were minus defencemen Joe Baird and Dan Scott, so leading goal scorer Ciaran Long moved back to the blue line.

From the opening face-off this game was a chippy affair, which referee Dave Cloutman tried to keep the lid on.

The Bison took under five minutes to open the scoring, as man of the match Joe Rand netted from close range.

As the session continued the hits increased and the Flames ended the period strongly thanks to consecutive powerplays.

The second one was caused by Bison’s Matt Towalski being called for 2+10 for checking from behind on Tom Duggan.

Then right on the buzzer Kurt Reynolds and Tuomas Santavuori both picked up roughing penalties, which was very much like a support bout to the fights later in the contest.

Early in the second session, Long saw his shot hit the crossbar and then with Guildford Flames shorthanded, Bison netminder Tomas Hiadlovsky skated into the corner and tried to clear the puck with a diagonal pass, which only found Michal Satek, who fired into the empty net.

Soon after, the Bison’s Derek Roehl and Guildford’s Marek Maslonka both went to the sin bin and were then joined by Rand.

The Flames made the most of the four-on-three advantage as Jens Eriksson put the puck over the shoulder of Hiadlovsky.

After killing another penalty, this time on Reynolds, which was greeted by a chorus of boos from the home fans, the Bison hit back as Aaron Connolly netted with a lovely top shelf finish.

The Herd were then given a powerplay after Maslonka was lucky to escape with just two minutes for cross checking when it looked more like an elbow to the face of Ivan Antonov.

The Bison made the most of the penalty as Dan Davies slipped the puck under former Herd man Dean Skinns to make it 3-2 at 34:56.

Then on the second buzzer, the visitor’s Andrew McKinney and Declan Balmer came together and each started the final period in the sin bin.

Two minutes into the last session, Guildford’s Kevin Phillips saw his shot crash off the post after nice set-up play from Kari Sihvonen.

The game continued to have an edge and Connolly took exception to a hit by Maslonka, but the import was not interested in fighting the Bison captain.

Guildford then again came close to an equaliser as Santavuori hit the post.

Soon after a lovely passing move by the Bison saw Tomas Karpov and Grant Rounding combine and Reynolds was denied by a great save.

This was followed by a great piece of defensive work by Stuart Mogg, as he took the puck off the stick of Sihovenen.

With only 81 seconds left another hit from Maslonka left Mogg on the ice behind the home goal, so Derek Roehl stuck up for his team mate, as he fought the Guildford import in centre ice.

Once these two players were parted Flames captain Jez Lundin steamed in and got involved with Roehl and was dismissed for leaving the bench.

This gave the Bison a powerplay which they made the most of as Rand tipped home a shot from Karpov with 19.1 seconds left.

That should have been the last action of the game, but it was not, as 10 seconds later a hit from Silvonen left Rounding flat out on the ice and this sparked a mass scrum in the corner of the rink as players paired off.

Guildford’s Kevin Phillps jumped Long, which saw Phillips end up with a 2+2 for roughing and a game misconduct.

Meanwhile, Daniel Lackey having been hit in the face by Sam Godfrey gave it back to the visiting defenceman, as both received 2+2 for roughing Also at the same time, Declan Balmer and Silvonen clashed. Balmer somehow ended up with two lots of 2+2 for roughing and Silvonen with just a 2+2 and so escaped unpunished for an initial hit which caused all the trouble.

Before play could resume numerous gloves and sticks had to be removed from the ice, and the Bison swapped their netminder to Dan Weller-Evans, just in case something sparked off again.

This proved not to be the case as the final 9.7 seconds was played with no further incidences.

Tonight, the Bison complete their weekend fixtures with a trip to Ice Sheffield to face the Sheffield Steeldogs.