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Phoenix lose play off final after heroic effort

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Manchester Phoenix 3 - Basingstoke Bison 5

Phoenix scorers: Robin Kovar x 2, James Archer

J Davidson sponsored Manchester Phoenix narrowly lost their Play off crown to Basingstoke Bison on Sunday, but not without a superhuman effort by the team.

Already without Liam Chong and Jack Watkins, the team suffered a blow when James Neil broke a toe in Saturday’s semi final. The brave young man suited and booted and gave his all for the cause on Sunday, as did every one of the squad. Phoenix drafted in youngster Jared Dickinson for the weekend’s games.

The first period was a nip and tuck affair with Bison having the better of the play and the beleaguered Phoenix working their socks off to contain their opponents. Both teams had chances to open the scoring but both netminders were on top of their game and the period ended scoreless.

Basingstoke came out with intent, and brought a hard physical game to Phoenix in the early stages of the second period. The holders weathered the early storm and slowly got themselves back into the game, taking the lead on 28.47 with a power play goal. Ex Phoenix player Ciaran Long was sitting out a boarding call when the Phoenix power play unit swung into action and Robin Kovar scored, assisted by Tony Hand and Michal Psurny. Long made up for his transgression in the Bison fans’ eyes just 26 seconds later as he scored an unassisted goal to level the scores.

Two minutes after the game-tying goal, Bison were awarded a penalty shot when Robin Kovar was adjudged to have hooked Joe Rand in the process of shooting for goal and the same player made no mistake to put Bison ahead. The period ended with Bison on top 2-1 and Phoenix resolutely defending, with netminder Stephen Fone again in top form.

Phoenix started the third period with a purpose and scored an equaliser, again on the power play, on 42.30. James Archer was the scorer, to the delight of the huge, noisy Phoenix contingent with assists to Frankie Bakrlik and Tony Hand. Phoenix then had their best spell of the game but two goals in 68 seconds broke the hearts of the Faithful.  Joe Baird got the first with a neat goal, assisted by Joe Rand and Aaron Connolly, timed at 47.53 and shortly afterwards Tomas Karpov hit a beauty of a shot from the blue line to beat an unsighted Fone for 4-2.

Phoenix somehow found a last bit of energy with 56.49 gone as Robin Kovar made it 4-3, assists going to Andy McKinney and Robert Schnabel. The champions then gave it their all and pulled netminder Fone with 50 seconds to go to try and find an equaliser, but Bison finished the scoring an empty net goal with 2 seconds left. The Phoenix players dropped to their knees in sheer exhaustion at the end but were visibly cheered by the 550 Phoenix fans singing “We are proud of you” for at least 5 minutes.

Coach Tony Hand said after the game:

“We gave it everything we had and I am tremendously proud of the whole locker room for their efforts. Basingstoke were the better side and congratulations to them. We just had nothing left in the tank at the end but can hold our heads high. Thanks also to the fans. They have been brilliant all weekend and really gave us a boost throughout.”