THE Basingstoke Bison dished out the Peterborough Phantoms’ biggest defeat of the season, as they beat them 6-2, to win their Autumn Cup group.

The odds looked stacked against the Bison, as they took to the ice, minus Josh Smith, Ivan Antonov, Roman Malinik and Joe Baird.

After a very even first 20 minutes, the Bison took the lead 100 seconds into the second session.

Dan Scott found the net with a great shot from the blue line, during the Herd’s second powerplay of the night.

The home side doubled their advantage seven minutes later, as Kurt Reynolds with the first of his three assists on the night, released Aaron Connolly to score with a shot in off the crossbar.

The Phantoms then hit back, thanks to Leigh Jamieson as he made the most of a stray defensive pass.

Just two minutes later, the visitors were level as Darius Pliskauskas was found by Robert Ferrara for a shorthanded strike.

Peterborough could then have taken the lead, but Will Weldon’s shot came back off the crossbar.

The home side made the most of the let off, as man of the match Ryan Sutton scored from close range with another powerplay goal.

The final period started with the Bison needing to kill off a Tomas Karpov penalty taken a second before the break.

They did this and thanks to some determined work around the net, Grant Rounding scored at 43:13 to extend the lead to 4-2.

The game as a contest ended six minutes later, thanks to a slick passing move which saw Reynolds find Sutton, and in turn he laid the puck onto Connolly to net his second of the game.

The Bison scoring was completed in the final two minutes as Stuart Mogg stepped out of the sin bin, to latch onto a pass from Paul Petts and drilled the puck past Euan King to make it 6-2.

The Herd’s win means they will now face the Hull Pirates in the semi-finals of the Autumn Cup, while Peterborough will take on the Swindon Wildcats.

This evening, the Herd return to league action, with a tricky away trip to Streatham, as they look to avenge their only league loss of the campaign so far.

Also today, Bison’s Smith is in action for Great Britain under-20s in their opening game of their World Championship campaign against Romania, which starts at 8pm.