It was defeat for the Invicta Dynamos on Sunday night, but they ran Basingstoke Bison really close.

In what looked like was going to be a walkover on paper, the home side put in a much improved performance from the previous week having lost 11-1 at home to London Raiders.

In fact, it was the Dynamos that started on the front foot in an entertaining opening minute of the game.

There were just 38 seconds on the clock when Invicta went in front with Callum Fowler weaving his magic and firing home.

Just 13 more seconds had passed when a four man fight broke out. A late hit on Dynamo import Adam Rehak saw Tommy Ralph trade blows with Dan Scott, whilst Rehak got up to fight with Bison’s Grant Rounding.

The game was to settle after that and the visitors began to assert their authority on the game and finally levelled in the 11th minute through Tomas Karpov with Aaron Connolly making it 2-1 to Bison just two minutes later.

Controversial decisions seem to follow the Dynamos wherever they go and tonight was no different. Late on in the first period Rehak questioned an offside call and was given a ten minute misconduct penalty by referee Blaine Evans who seemingly does his best to be the centre of attention.

At 2-1 down going into the second period the Dynamos knew they would be up against it, but again put in plenty of fight and were unlucky to concede at the end of a Bison powerplay in the 34th minute with Scott making it 3-1.

With little over sixty seconds left in the period, Tommy Ralph stepped up to thunder home from the blue line to the delight of the home support.

The game was still in the balance going into the final frame, but it was the visitors that extended their lead in the 49th minute as Karpov bagged another beyond the ever impressive Damien King.

Less than a minute later and it was back to 4-3 as Louis Colvin showed great speed and maturity to beat the Bison netminder from an acute angle.

A penalty against Mason Webster for boarding proved costly for the Dynamos as Bison made it 5-3 in the 52nd minute with Ivan Antonov getting himself on the scoresheet.

Try as they might, the Dynamos couldn’t claw their way back into the game again, despite throwing everything they had at a Basingstoke side that will know they’d been in a game.

Head Coach Kevin Parrish now has a week to prepare his side for two tough away games next weekend.

He takes his side to Peterborough Phantoms on Saturday night before another road trip on Sunday evening to face Milton Keynes Thunder.