Basingstoke Bison 2, Dundee Stars 3 (after overtime)

Basingstoke Bison boss Mark Bernard has blasted his players for producing two "awful" performances.

Bernard was furious with his side, after seeing them pick up only one point at the weekend - losing 3-0 to Belfast on Friday night and then 3-2 in overtime to Dundee Stars on Saturday.

With the Bison's nearest play-off rivals London Racers losing on Friday, it was a great chance for the Herd to make up ground on them, but they failed to take it.

Their single point reduced the deficit to six in the race for the final play-off spot, but London have played four fewer games.

After a double success last weekend, against Nottingham and Belfast, hopes were high that the Bison were on a winning stampede.

However, that was ended on Friday in Belfast and, 24 hours later, the Herd gave away a two-goal lead to lose to visiting Dundee.

Bernard said: "It has been a very disappointing weekend as we have missed a good opportunity to close the gap on London.

"We were awful in both games and it comes down, once again, to a lack of work ethic.

"Our forwards were not very good, making stupid mistakes, and a couple of our defencemen have been giving the puck away all weekend.

"These sorts of performances are not going to help us make the play-offs."

Against Dundee on Saturday, the home side had the better of the opening session and deserved their 1-0 lead.

That came at 7:38 as Bison man-of-the-match Duncan Dalmao latched on to a pass from Shawn Maltby and fired over the shoulder of Evan Lindsay in the visitors' goal.

The rest of the session saw the home side have the better chances, with Tony Redmond - setting a new league appearance record for Basingstoke of 313 - passing to Shaun Thompson, who went close.

The second session saw Dundee hit major penalty trouble as former Bison James Hutchinson departed for hooking.

He was joined in the sin bin a second later by Cory Morgan after he cut Mike Ford's face, drawing a four-minute penalty.

For the second week running, the Bison were unable to make a two-man advantage pay, with Steve Gallace three times sending good shots from the blue line, which Lindsay dealt with.

Hutchinson returned to the ice, but, before Morgan reappeared, Doug Sheppard extended the lead as he netted from close range after a nice backhand pass from Jeff Ewasko.

Despite being 2-0 down, the Stars upped their work rate, looking to get back in the game - and the Bison's Ronnie Vogel suddenly became the busier of the two netminders.

It was no real surprise when the visitors pulled a goal back at 36:46, with Racers man-of-the-match Morgan finding the top corner.

He then went on to tie the game as he deflected a Jason Shmyr blue-line shot just two minutes after the restart.

In a contest of few big hits, Bison Owen Walter flattened one of the Dundee Stars right in front of his bench at the midway point of the session, to which Shmyr took exception with his fists.

The cavalry arrived in the form of the Herd's Jason Norrie, who flattened the pair, trying to break up the fight, but was ejected from the game for third man in.

With no further scoring, the match went to overtime and the Stars scored the winner at 62:54 as Jeff Marshall's blue-line shot was deflected by Mark Scott past a helpless Vogel.

The Bison will hope to bounce back on Saturday as the Edinburgh Capitals are in town - the team the Herd beat 5-2 in Scotland earlier in the season.

Scoring, Bison: Sheppard 1+1, Dalmao 1+0, Maltby, Ewasko, Norrie 0+1; Stars: Morgan 2+0, Scott 1+0, Shmyr 0+2, Marshall, Berrington, Wishart, Barnes 0+1. Shots on goal: Vogel 33, Lindsay 47. Penalties: Bison 36min Stars 20.