THE Basingstoke Bison produced a storming third period display as they came back from 2-1 to beat their bitter local rivals the Bracknell Bees 5-2 at a packed Basingstoke Arena.

The home side minus Dan Scott were stunned early on as the Bees opened the scoring in the fourth minute.

A nice shot from the left point from Carl Thompson was tipped past Dean Skinns by Bracknell’s man of the match Josh Martin.

The Bees were then really buzzing, as Frankie Bakrlik was sent clear and made it 2-0.

The Herd who had not played that bad in the first session, got themselves back into the contest, thanks to a super strike from man of the match Ryan Sutton.

The middle session was a forgettable scrappy affair, but the Bees were then really stung in the opening three minutes of the final period, as they shipped three goals.

The first came after only 28 seconds, as Roman Malinik robbed Matt Foord in his own end zone and skated the length of the rink.

The Czech forward’s shot was saved, but Sutton put away the rebound to tie the game.

The home fans had barely finished celebrating the goal, when the home side scored again as Ivan Antonov fed Tomas Karpov to score at 40:57 A whirlwind start to the final period continued as a lovely move saw Grant Rounding’s pass commit the Bees goalie and Roman Malinik swept the puck into the net.

At this point, Bracknell called a time out, but the visitors suffered a string of penalties and the Herd piled on the pressure but were unable to add a fifth goal.

Alex Mettam in the home net made some excellent saves, including three in quick succession from Rounding, Sutton and Aaron Connolly during one of four final period powerplays.

With five minutes left, Bracknell’s Danny Ingoldsby decided he wanted to fight Rounding and threw his gloves to the ice.

However, the Bison man skated away, leaving an embarrassed Ingoldsby with no option, but to head to his bench.

Play then stopped and tempers boiled over and while this was happening Ingoldsby decided it was time to return to the ice and grab Rounding.

The Bracknell player should have been dismissed for this, but instead just picked up a 10 minute misconduct penalty from referee Dan Boardman.

However, before play could resume, Basingstoke’s Joe Baird was cross checked from behind by James Galazzi by the visitors’ bench, which earned the Bracknell man just a two minute penalty, while Baird received a 10 minute misconduct penalty. Another awful call from Boardman.

Once the dust had settled Bracknell’s Alex Barker went close and then the visitors pulled their goalie.

Josh Smith was the first Bison player to try and hit the empty net but Harvey Stead just managed to collect the puck in the goal crease and clear before it went in.

However, seconds later Antonov found Rounding with a pass and the impressive forward got the goal his night’s work deserved.

Tonight, the Bison have a tough trip to Romford to take on the London Raiders.