THE Basingstoke Bison won their league series over the second placed Milton Keynes Lightning with a 3-2 victory on home ice.

The Herd were minus the injured Dan Scott, while for MK import Milan Baranyk was suspended.

However, this did not the stop the visitors scoring with their first shot of the contest, as the impressive Lewis Hook scored at 1:51.

The first powerplay of the night saw the Lightning shorthanded, but Tomas Hiadlovsky was twice called into action to save from Adam Carr and Hook.

A second Bison powerplay proved a different story, as the Herd piled on the pressure, but Przemyslaw Odrobry was in great form and kept them out.

From then on the home side dominated to the buzzer and got their deserved equaliser at 17:15 from man of the match Dan Davies.

The second period could have seen the Lightning have two imports thrown out of the game, but both Blaz Emersic and Frankie Bakrlik survived.

Emersic was the first to nearly get dismissed, when he caught Joe Rand in the face with his stick leaving the Bison forward laid out on the ice. This sort of thing has led to match penalties in the past, but referee Stephen Matthews decided it was accidental which was probably the right call.

Just over two minutes later, Milton Keynes took the lead as Bakrlik netted to make it 2-1.

The Bison then hit back scoring on the powerplay, as Joe Miller picked up his first point since returning from injury, as Derek Roehl’s blue line blast tied the game.

Just seconds later, Declan Balmer was left in a heap by the boards behind the Bison goal after a high hit from Bakrlik.

Once again the medics had to come onto the ice and Balmer then skated off to the dressing room. Bakrlik was very lucky to escape with a 2+10 penalty for checking to the head, it should have been more.

The final 20 minutes saw the home side have the upper hand, but thanks to some excellent stops from MK man of the match Odrobry, the game looked to be heading for overtime.

However, the Bison’s top goal scorer Ciaran Long had other ideas and a superb bullet shot from the Brit flew into the net with five minutes left.

After this the home side kept up the pressure and with only 30 seconds left, Odrobry was able to leave the ice for the extra skater.

Hiadlovsky tried to become the second goalkeeper in the club’s history to score an empty net goal, but his shot went wide.

So with 8.5 seconds left, MK had a face-off in the Bison end zone and after the teams traded time outs, the Bison won the draw and Kurt Reynolds just missed the empty net. Next up for the Herd, is a game at home against a National Ice Hockey League Select team on Saturday.

This is a season ticket game and replaces one of the home league games lost by the demise of the Manchester Phoenix.