Late goals cost inconsistent Telford Tigers

Autocraft Telford Tigers travelled to Basingstoke on Saturday for the first time this season.

Basingstoke had a delayed start to the season as their newly refurbished rink was not ready, meaning they played their opening games of the season on the road and were only now catching up with the other teams in terms of games played. Basingstoke came into the game having won their previous five games and facing a Telford team whose form was inconsistent.

Tigers had started most recent games slowly and had ended up chasing a losing battle but a close fought opening period ended goalless despite Tigers not playing at their best.

Tigers took the lead midway through the second period with a wrap around goal from Harry Ferguson. That goal looked like it would allow Telford to end the period with a lead but a controversial moment in the dying seconds saw Basingstoke draw level.

Luke Spadafora hit a shot from distance as the clock showed a few seconds of the period left. The shot hit the post and rebounded out to Brendan Sellan who turned the puck into the open net Referees Brooks and Goodfellow conferred and decided that the puck had gone in prior to the buzzer and gave the goal.

The third period was close and Tigers best chance fell to Scott McKenzie who shot from the slot  after good set up play by David Thomson but Basingstoke netminder Max Wright made a good save and the puck was cleared.

As the clock ticked towards the final minute of the game a pass from Nick Oliver was blocked on the Basingstoke blue line and broke kindly to Alex Sampford who skated unopposed toward the Tigers’ goal and scored for the hosts.

Tigers pulled netminder Ben Norton from goal and laid siege to the Bison goal in the remaining seconds but a turnover from Rhodes Mitchell-King allowed Adam Harding to gain possession of the puck and send it the length of the ice into the empty net to seal the win.

Final Score: Basingstoke Bison 3 Autocraft Telford Tigers 1.

Scorers: Harry Ferguson.

Man of the match: Patrick Brown.

After the game Head Coach Tom Watkins commented, “That was not our best performance but we were unfortunate not to pick up the points and deserved something from the game.

“I thought we were slow starters again today, our power play was sloppy in the first period and I don’t think we got a shot on goal through the whole of our power play. 

“We didn’t create a lot of quality chances offensively. A lot of passes/shots got stick checked or blocked and we had no quality at all throughout the game. The only positive was that our penalty kill was solid.”