Lee Valley Lions 3 Basingstoke Buffalos 8

Lee Valley Lions’ January blues continued on Saturday after a promising start soon collapsed and the team suffered another heavy defeat, this time at the hands of Basingstoke Buffalos.

The Lions started well as Scott Beeson ruffled Aaron Taylor in the Basingstoke net by scoring less than two minutes into the game.

However, the visitors took a matter of seconds to reply, with Sam Dollin’s slapshot getting past Ruth Cattell in the home side’s goal.

Lee Valley nudged back into the lead at 3:24, this time thanks to Richard Hodge and Philippe Mueller setting up the ever-gutsy Joe Berry.

From these first few minutes it looked as if fans were going to be treated to a bevy of goals from both sides and a closely fought contest.

However, a shock onslaught of four Basingstoke goals in less than six minutes soon put paid to that idea and a deflated Ruth Cattell was replaced in goal by Steve Grout.

The previous week’s man of the match winner Adam Peach, showed he was still on fine form by hitting an unassisted goal past Aaron Taylor at 12:21, but neither team would score again during the first period.

Lee Valley’s vigour improved in the second period and at one point a number of shots were hammered in quick succession at Aaron Taylor, but the netminder held firm and a fourth home goal proved impossible.

Basingstoke, on the other hand, had no such trouble, Simon Beere and Thomas Pope both finding the back of the net around the period’s midway point.

The final period was in marked contrast to the first two as the Lions refused to let their heads go down and came out determined to prevent the scoreline from widening further.

Although the Lions succeeded, they also failed to score, causing Basingstoke to skate away with an 8-3 victory.

Lee Valley Lions’ run of home games continues on Saturday as they face bottom-placed Slough Jets, with a chance to get a morale-boosting victory following back-to-back home defeats in which they have conceded a total of 16 goals. The action starts at Lee Valley at 5.15pm.