FOUR goals from Ciaran Long was enough to seal a dominant 8-4 victory for Basingstoke Bison over Swindon Wildcats to put a major dent in the hosts hopes of clinching third spot in the league.

Swindon went into the game just three points behind their third placed opponents with a game in hand but it appears that Swindon will have to settle for fourth place in the play-off picture with just three games of the regular season remaining.

Swindon started brightly and straight from the face-off tested Dean Skinns with shots from Jonas Hoog and Tomasz Malasinski.

With Basingstoke struggling to get going their cause was hindered further when Joe Greener got an early penalty for hooking.

However Swindon were caught dead in their tracks when Hoog gifted the puck to Long in the centre of the ice and the forward was able to skate free and beat Stevie Lyle one-on-one.

The lead lasted just 22 seconds though as Swindon bounced straight back.

Tomas Malasinski, surrounded by three Bison players, was able to get the puck out to Aaron Nell on the right who fired low under the body of Skinns.

Basingstoke responded well, in a frantic first period, and two quick-fire goals from the visitors put them in a commanding position before the break.

Stevie Whitfield found himself in the sin-bin for interference and ten seconds later Greener had restored the visitors lead.

Long hit a fierce shot that came off the back board and, with Lyle wrong-footed, the British forward was able to steer the puck home.

Just 20 seconds later the Bison had doubled their lead when Doug Sheppard was able to set up Long for his second of the match.

Swindon started the second period well but, again, it was the visitors that scored first with a short-handed goal.

With Andrew Melachrino in the bin for roughing, Aaron Connolly was given too much time as he skated into the Swindon half and let fly with a shot that was just too good for Lyle.

Like the first period Swindon responded, this time through skipper Jan Kostal, who was found after an industrious drive from Adam Harding.

Bison restored their three goal advantage just before the half hour mark when Long completed his hat-trick.

Connolly performed a chest control of the puck, more familiar in football, and his shot across the face of the goal was blocked by the legs of Lyle but the goalie was unable to claim it before Long bundled the puck over the line.

The visitors took advantage of a man advantage in the 34th minute when Harding was penalised for slashing.

With the Welsh forward in the bin Basingstoke piled forward and Miroslav Vantroba was able to find Long from behind the net and he scrambled the puck home to seemingly put the game out of sight.

Swindon saw out the remainder of Malasinski’s penalty at the start of the third period and shortly after the Pole made his way back onto the ice he was on hand to finish a square pass from Nell to give the home fans a glimmer of hope.

The home side failed to capitalise on the goal though and Melachrino was able to restore the visitor’s advantage when he latched onto a re-bound from a Nicky Chinn shot in the 45th minute.

Basingstoke continued to turn their dominance into goals in rather fortunate circumstances when a hopeful pass forward from Stuart Mogg looked to be comfortably picked up by Lyle but with the net-minder out of his goal it took a nasty bounce off the board and the puck found its way into an empty net.

Sam Bullas got the fourth for Swindon with five minutes remaining but he did not know much about it.

Harding had the initial shot from just inside the Bison half and the puck took a fortunate deflection off of Bullas’ skate to find its way past a wrong-footed Skinns.

But with Malasinksi again finding himself in the sin-bin for tripping with 2.09 left on the clock Swindon were left to cling on at the end to complete a disappointing night in front of their home fans.