MICHAL Klejna scored the first Basingstoke Bison hat-trick of the new decade, to help the Herd to a 5-2 victory over the visiting Hull Pirates.

The Slovak sniper took just 70 seconds to open his account last night as he scored from close range, he then netted a second at 3:18 with a great strike.

The first powerplay of the evening saw Hull’s Chris Wilcox go to the sin bin for holding Klejna’s stick and the Herd made it 3-0. This was after a sweet passing move, which involved Ashley Tait, Adam Jones and Sean Norris who applied the finish.

Hull had a few chances during the opening period, but Bison netminder Alex Mettam was equal to them all, with the returning Matty Davies coming the closest.

Unlike the first period, in which the home side had the upper hand, the second was dominated by the visitors for the most part.

However, the Bison did nearly make it 4-0, when George Norcliffe in his first game back from injury, forced a good pad save out of Ashley Smith and Richard Bordowski hit the crossbar with the rebound.

Hull then pulled a goal back at 29:53, as a nice passing move involving Matt Bissonnette who was making his debut for the team and Davies saw Bobby Chamberlain tap home.

Two minutes later and the visitors were right back in the game, as man of the match Lee Bonner scored to make it 3-2.

This woke the home side up and they were the better team for the remainder of the session, as Ollie Stone, Hallam Wilson and Adam Harding were all denied.

Then with 79 seconds left in the period, Bison’s Liam Morris flicked the puck over Smith only for it to hit the crossbar once more.

The final period opened with the most even passage of play in the match so far and to the delight of the home fans the next goal was scored by man of the match Klejna, as he completed his hat-trick at 47:24.

The visitors continued to try and get back into the contest and with 78 seconds left they pulled their netminder.

Just eight seconds later, Harding just missed the empty net from distance and then Morris looked set to score but hit the post with 58 seconds remaining.

Hull’s Davies then went close at the other end, before a great long pass down the left wing from Jones to Tait, saw him feed Ryan Sutton, who made no mistake with 13.3 seconds left. Tait’s helper on the goal was his fourth assist of the night.

After the game Bison player/coach Tait said: “We were good in the first, not good in the second and gave them a lifeline. We then picked it up again in the third and the fourth goal was vital for us to take the win, but we cannot afford to keep doing this.”

Tonight, the Bison have a tough away game at leaders Telford which starts at 6pm.