THE Basingstoke Bison moved a step closer to the play-off finals in Coventry after a hard fought 3-1 victory over the Swindon Wildcats on home ice.

The Herd without Grant Rounding injured the previous night in Milton Keynes, bounced back to winning ways and in rest physical contest took the lead at 7:11.

A lovely passing move saw Tomas Karpov feed Joe Miller and he in turn found Derek Roehl on the left wing and he picked to spot.

The advantage was short lived as two minutes later Bison Declan Balmer gave the puck up to Tom Rutkis and he slide the puck across to Sam Bullas to net.

The first penalty of the game arrived just 22 seconds into the middle period as Swindon goalie Stevie Lyle was penalised for punching Karpov.

Joe Rand went close with the man advantage, but the penalty was killed.

Later, in the session, the Wildcats ran into more penalty trouble as Robin Kovar joined Steve Whitfield in the sin bin, which gave the Herd 101 seconds of a five on three advantage.

They made the most it as Karpov scored with a lovely blue line bullet.

The home side dominated the middle session as they out shot the visitors 20-1, but still only led 2-1 at the second break.

The final 20 minutes again saw few clear cut chances and with the forwards Swindon have they were always in the game, but the Bison defence did a great job of stopping the likes of Tomasz Malasinski and Jonas Hoog from having any real goal scoring opportunities.

With 45.8 seconds left, the Wildcats called a time out, but were unable to pull their goalie and in the final seconds a pass from boards from Roehl found Ciaran Long all alone in front and with some clever stick work he slotted in goal number three.

The Herd continue their play-off campaign on Wednesday night in Hull, who have lost all their games so far.

The Bison then conclude their home campaign with a visit from on the Milton Keynes Lightning on Saturday (6.30pm).