THREE powerplay goals in the space of four minutes in the final period sent the Basingstoke Bison to a 5-3 defeat against the visiting Swindon Wildcats on Saturday night.

The Herd were still minus defenceman Tom Ralph but did welcome back forward Alex Sampford to their line-up for this game.

The visitors started the better and were helped by nearly two minutes of a two-man advantage after Liam Morris joined club captain Elliott Dewey in the sin bin.

The home side did well to kill off the penalties and then started to get the upper hand.

Richard Bordowski and Hallam Wilson combined well for man of the match Jay King, who fired just wide.

More chances followed with Renny Marr having to be at his best to keep the Herd out.

The Bison then opened the scoring at 18:24, after Sean Norris finished off a nice move involving Ashley Tait and Ryan Sutton.

Early in the second period, Adam Harding released Bordowski, but Marr denied him with a great save.

Then at 29:48, Bordowski doubled the lead after a lovely pass from Sam Talbot.

The visitors hit back as nice work from Tyler Vankleef set up Edgars Bebris to score.

Then just when it looked like the Herd would go in at the second break leading, Swindon’s Aaron Nell with a back-hand finish tied the game 45 seconds before the second buzzer.

The final session opened with Bordowski and Tait having early chances, before the Bison made it 3-2 at 42:56.

A blue line blast from Ollie Stone was tipped home by Sutton.

Six minutes later, the game was turned on its head as Bordowski was dismissed on a 5 + game penalty for boarding Chris Jones.

The import also picked up four minutes for fighting, as did Swindon’s Sam Godfrey.

This gave the visitors a five-minute powerplay and they scored three times with the man advantage.

Swindon’s man of the match Tomasz Malasinski netted the first with a great strike and then Jones netted the second.

Malasinki then made it three goals in four minutes, despite Bison’s netminder Alex Mettam’s appeals that the puck came off his mask and should have been disallowed.

Now trailing by two, the home side tried to get themselves back into the game and were given a late powerplay.

During the man advantage, Michal Klejna’s disagreement with an offside call earned him a 10-minute misconduct penalty.

The Bison did pull their netminder for the final 90 seconds but were unable to score.

The Bison have the chance for quick revenge this evening (6.15pm), when they travel to the Link Centre to take on the Wildcats again.