BRACKNELL Bees were involved in an incredible 11-goal thriller with Raiders in Romford on Sunday, writes Dave Wright.

They went 2-1 up in the first period, but a disastrous 10-minute spell left them trailing 5-2 by the second interval.

A thrilling final 20 minutes saw them battle back to level the scores at 5-5, only to concede a sixth goal with just 38 seconds remaining.

And this loss completed a pointless weekend for the Bees as they had been beaten 3-2 at home by Peterborough Phantoms on Saturday.

Their home form must be of particular concern to head coach Doug Sheppard as they have won only one of their last four games at The Hive, and that was against Telford Tigers who were top of the table at the time.

They lost to Phantoms despite out-shooting them by 39 goal attempts to 32.

The visitors opened their account with a power-play goal from Glenn Billing in the 17th minute.

Aidan Doughty brought the scores level after 28 minutes, only for Billing to restore his side's lead in the 39th minute.

Robin Kovar, who had assisted in the first goal along with Luke Jackson, made it 2-2 at 51:48 from a chance set up by Joe Baird and Ed Knaggs.

Both sides battled hard for the winner, but it went the way of the visitors thanks to Petr Stepanek's thunderbolt in the 57th minute.

Having been edged out 3-2 by Raiders the previous weekend, Bees travelled to Romford seeking revenge with a squad missing Jackson and Josh Smith.

They fell behind to a Blahoslav Novak strike in the fourth minute, but within four minutes were level through Kovar, thanks to an assist from Harvey Stead, and shortly afterwards Vanya Antonov fired them ahead with James Galazzi, back from injury, providing the assist.

Bees were still in front early in the second period and there was no sign of what was to about to happen.

Incredibly, they conceded four goals in a 10-minute spell, with Lukas Sladkovsky, Olegs Lascenko, Aaron Connolly and Jake Sylvester as the hosts stormed into a 5-2 lead.

Bracknell were left reeling, but to their credit, they picked themselves up and fought back with goals from Brendan Baird, Roman Malinik and Antonov to make it 5-5 and set up a tense last seven minutes.

A thrilling game could have gone either way, but there was heartache for the TSI World-sponsored side when Mason Webster deflected in Jack Flynn's shot to snatch the winner with the clock showing 59:22.

Bees were left gutted and when the final buzzer sounded two-goal Antonov (pictured) unwisely got himself in trouble with the match officials.

He received a 10-minute misconduct penalty, followed by a game and match penalty, leaving him with 55 penalty points for the evening, whilst taking Bees' tally to 75, which also included 12 for Zach Milton.

Russian forward Antonov, who also plays for Streatham, now finds himself in hot water after a memorable October which saw him voted the NIHL Division One South player of the month, having scored seven goals, including a hat-trick, which helped his team win five matches.

Bracknell Hornets' Ben Ealey-Newman was also nominated for the award.

Bees, down to seventh in the league table following three successive odd-goal defeats, will be looking for a return to winning form when they visit bottom club MK Lightning on Saturday (7pm) and then on Sunday (5.30pm) the visitors are Basingstoke Bison, the side who won 9-2 at The Hive last month.

* Bracknell players Emma Nichols, Ellie Wakeling, Emily Harris, Lucy Beal, Jessie Taylor and Rhiannon Price are all in the GB Under 18 Women's squad for matches against Spain, Iceland and Poland in Dumfries this coming weekend.