THE Basingstoke Bison suffered the heartbreak of losing in overtime as they surrendered their perfect home record beaten 4-3 by the Hull Pirates.

The Herd were still minus import Richard Bordowski and British forward Oscar Evans and it was Hull who took the lead in the contest in the fifth minute. Jonathan Kirk was their scorer on the powerplay, with a nice wrist shot.

Bison’s Adam Harding having been sent to the sin bin for a face-off violation.

The Herd levelled things up at 11:30 after Jay King fed Liam Morris. His shot was padded away by Ashley Smith, but Hallam Wilson converted the rebound.

The second session saw both sides look to take the lead and in the 26th minute a great double stop from Smith denied Ashley Tait and Paul Petts.

However, soon after the Bison made it 2-1 on the powerplay, as Tom Ralph and Harding combined for Michal Klejna to score at the back post.

Another man advantage saw the Herd double their lead, as man of the match Harding scored his first goal of the season, after great work from Tait.

Hull cut the lead to one at 37:03, as defenceman Lee Haywood fired home to make the score 3-2 at the second interval.

At 46:03 the home side were given a great chance to double their lead, as Hull import Peter Fabus and top British defenceman Kevin Phillips both went to the sin bin at the same time.

This gave the Herd a full two minutes of a 5-on-3 advantage, but the closest they came was pinging the pipework, as the Pirates killed off the penalties.

Then with less then eight minutes to play the visitors tied the game as Sam Towner scored on the powerplay.

Both sides then went looking for the winner, but with no further scoring the game went into overtime.

The Herd went close thanks to Ryan Sutton, before a super solo strike from Fabus gave the visitors the victory and left the Bison with just one point from their night’s work

This evening (5.30pm) the Bison have the short trip to the Hive to take on the Bracknell Bees.