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Weekend Review – 15/16th February

Swindon Wildcats secured a four-point weekend following a dramatic overtime victory against Basingstoke Bison at the Link Centre on Sunday.

Starting their key pair of fixtures against the Bison with a 5-3 away win on Saturday night, Cats went 1-0 down inside 90 seconds on their home ice pad before turning the game on its head to lead 3-1.

Bison came roaring back however, and went 5-3 ahead prior to the end of the second period.

The visitors stretched their advantage to 6-4, only for Aaron Nell’s men to recapture the lead with less than eight minutes to play.

But with a penalty shoot-out looming, player-coach Nell stepped up to slam home the winner with 42 seconds of overtime remaining.

Reflecting on a game that had ‘everything’, Nell said: “I just hope both sets of fans enjoyed it.

“It was a great weekend of hockey for us – very close too – and good to see two full rinks.

“There were two great atmospheres, and we’re just happy to come out with two massive wins.

“The goal at the end was rightly chalked off – Tomasz Malasinski used his glove, but it was just a desperation thing.

“Basingstoke never go away, their coach is doing a great job and they’ve got a really good team.

“There are so many things I could mention from that game – I thought it had everything.

“Whether someone was watching for the first time or if they had been a fan for a long time, they would have loved that.”

Now just two points behind National League leaders Telford Tigers ahead of the pair’s clash in Wiltshire on Saturday, Nell is keen for his key players to continue their sparkling form in the remaining games.

Scorer of all eight goals during Sunday night’s win, Nell – along with Malasinski, Edgars Bebris, Max Birbraer, Chris Jones and Tyler Vankleef – revealed a pre-match conversation with the Cats’ big hitters caused exactly the reaction he was after.

Nell said: “I pushed our top six at the weekend.

“We have some very good players up top, and we had a chat before Sunday’s game about what we wanted from them.

“It’s important for us to score the big goals at the key times.

“It’s our job to score those goals and be difference makers, and I thought we did that.”

Looking back further to Saturday evening in Basingstoke a crucial five minute powerplay where the Wildcats scored three goals secured a massive comeback victory in Hampshire.

Sean Norris have the hosts the lead late in the first period, with a shot that beat Renny Marr low to his left. Into the middle period and the hosts doubled their advantage, Richard Bordowski the man who was able to put the puck away.

At 34:07 Eddie Bebris was able to reduce the Cats deficit to a single goal, before very late in the second period Aaron Nell fired a sweet backhand shot over the shoulder of Alex Mettam to tie the game up at 2-2 at the end of the second period.

Early in the third period the Bison made the game 3-2 through Ryan Sutton before the turning point of the game arrived at 48:44 when Richard Bordowski was given a 5+Game penalty for a check from behind. On the resulting major penalty the Wildcats turned a 3-2 deficit into a 3-5 advantage.

Goals from Tomasz Malasinski at 49:34, Chris Jones at 51:26 and Tomasz Malasinski again at 52:03 turned the game in favour of the visitors and were able to kill out the remaining 7:57 of the game and seal the two points for Saturday evening.

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