Basingstoke Bison 1 Bracknell Bees 5;

Bracknell Bees 10 Basingstoke Bison 3

THE Basingstoke Bison's nightmare start to the season continued with back-to-back defeats against local rivals the Bracknell Bees at the weekend.

On Saturday night, a sleepy second period cost the Herd as Bracknell scored four times on their way to a 5-1 away victory.

Two days earlier in Berkshire, a lacklustre Bison side crashed to a 10-3 loss, with young British forward Danny Hughes scoring a hat-trick in the final four minutes.

In the defeat on home ice, things were looking good for the first 20 minutes as the Bison outplayed the visitors, but they only had one goal to show for it as Tony Redmond netted from Jeff Ewasko at 6:58.

Lee Richardson came closest for the Bees, hitting the post with a deflected shot. The Bison's Jozef Lukac also pinged a shot off the pipework late in the period.

Just seven seconds into the second session, the game was halted as a hole had appeared in one of the goal creases.

However, after tireless work from arena manager Charlie Colon, the game restarted 30 minutes later.

The Bison then found that they had a hole in their defence as the Bees scored a minute after the restart thanks to Matus Petricko, and then Serge Dube scored shorthanded for a 2-1 lead at 26:35.

With Bracknell's man-of-the-match Stevie Lyle stopping every-thing the Herd threw at him, the visitors extended their lead with a practised face-off routine through Mike Ellis, and then, with 52.7 seconds left in the period, Peter Campbell scored to make it 4-1.

The final session saw the Bison have long periods of pressure, without carving out any clear goalscoring opportunities.

The Bees added a fifth at 50:28, as Ellis netted on the powerplay, and that killed off the contest.

The Bison man-of-the-match went to Duncan Dalmao on his home debut. The new Canadian defenceman produced a number of nice touches and looks a good addition to the team.

Bison head coach and general manager Mark Bernard said: "We have paid tonight for not playing in the middle period. I felt for the first 20 minutes we were the better side, and we had the upper hand again in the third period. But we will not win games if we don't play for 60 minutes."

He added: "Next week we will increase the office training and will continue to work hard to put things right."

On Thursday night in Bracknell, the Herd trailed 2-0 at the first break as former Bison player Campbell scored twice.

After the break, Sheppard pulled a goal back on the powerplay, only for Martin Masa and Petricko to extend the lead to 4-1 after 40 minutes.

A Jerry Galway strike just 67 seconds in the final period gave the visitors some hope, with Dean Skinns taking over in the net from Vogel.

However, further strikes from Greg Owen and Dube made it 6-2, before Mike Ford pulled a goal back.

Skinns was then pulled for the extra skater, but the move back-fired as Hughes netted at 57:18 and then again 25 seconds later, this time with the netminder in place.

At this point the Bees started to run riot, as Mike Rees scored and man-of-the-match Hughes completed his hat-trick for a 10-3 win.

Teenage British forward Shaun Thompson was the Bison man-of-the-match.

Talking abut the embarrassing defeat, Bernard said: "We were awful in that game. No-one played well."

Scoring (Basingstoke v Bracknell); Bison: Redmond 1+0, Ewasko 0+1; Bees: Ellis 2+1, Campbell 1+3, Petricko 1+2, Dube 1+1, Smital 0+1. Shots on goal: Vogel 38, Lyle 43. Penalties: Bison 16min Bees 20.

Scoring (Bracknell v Basingstoke): Bees: Hughes 3+0, Campbell 2+0, Petricko 1+2, Rees, Masa 1+1, Owen, Dube 1+0, Smital 0+2, M Richardson, L Richardson, Meyers, Weidlich 0+1; Bison: Ford 1+1, Galway, Sheppard 1+0, Dalmao, Maltby, Walter, Ellis 0+1. Shots on goal: Lyle 36, Vogel 27, Skinns 14. Penalties: Bees 16, Bison 26.