Sheffield Steelers 3, Basingstoke Bison 1

THE BISON once again ran the Sheffield Steelers close, but in the end they were unable to stop the league leaders taking all the points in the House of Steel on Saturday night.

Curtis Cruickshank returned to play in goal and produced another outstanding performance, and Michael Wales from Milton Keynes was again in the Wella Bison line-up.

The contest was only 49 seconds old when referee Simon Kirkham called the first penalty of the night. Darren Hurley, in the Bison first line along with Christian Widauer and Martin Filip, was binned for interference.

The home side made the most of the extra man as Mark Dutiaume put away Kevin Bolibruck's rebound at 2:25.

Just 20 seconds later, the Bison drew level. Hurley started a move, feeding Doug Schuller and he, in turn, found Widauer to net only his second goal of the season for The Herd.

After that, the visitors had the better of the period and only a great save from Pasi Raitanen denied Bison man-of-the-match Martin Filip a goal.

At 18:54, the hard-fought physical contest boiled over as Widauer and Kirk DeWaele clashed. Both players threw a number of punches, earning each a four-minute rest for roughing. Widauer drew an extra cross-checking penalty at the same time.

This meant there were still 54 seconds left of a man advantage as the second session started. Dutiaume was denied by a great Cruickshank save as the net-minder smothered the rebound.

Sheffield started to dominate, with Erik Anderson forcing Cruickshank to save before Bison Joe Ciccarello was twice denied by Raitanen.

At 28:49, a goalmouth scramble around the home goal saw the net come adrift and Bison Richard Hargreaves' words of frustration about the incident earned him a 10-minute misconduct penalty.

Soon after, he was joined by Hurley in the sin bin but the visitors killed off the penalty.

When Filip departed to the penalty box at 33:50, Marc Lefebvre of the Steelers was already sitting out a tripping minor.

This left the teams playing four-on-four. Five seconds later, Sheffield took the lead when Gerad Adams hit the back of the net through a screen of players.

The final period got off to the worst possible start for the visitors. Within the first minute, DeWaele made the score 3-1 with a bullet of a shot.

The rest of the period saw few chances even though the visitors had two powerplays.

The closest anyone came to scoring was when Cruickshank dived full-length to knock the puck away and deny Steelers man-of-the-match Steve Ellis when he looked set to score into an empty net.

Bison player-coach Steve Moria said: " Once again we have no-thing to show for our efforts against a team who I believe are the best in the league."

The Bison were hoping for better luck last night when they faced second-placed Nottingham Panthers in their own arena.

Scoring, Steelers: Dutiaume 1+1, DeWaele, Adams 1+0, Bolibruk, Anderson, Bobyck, Ellis 0+1; Bison: Widauer 1+0, Hurley, Schuller 0+1.

Shots on goal: Raitanen 26, Cruickshank 38. Penalties: Steelers 10min, Bison 24.