Bees ‘shot themselves in the foot’
HEAD COACH Doug Sheppard says Bracknell Bees ‘shot themselves in the foot’ as they suffered double disappointment at the weekend.
Sheppard’s men led Streatham 4-2 heading into the final period at The Hive on Saturday, only for the visitors to battle back to draw 5-5 and then go on to defeat Bracknell on penalties.
And another loss followed on Sunday with a 4-2 reverse at Peterborough Phantoms.
“This weekend showed that there’s a fine line between a four point weekend and a one point weekend,” said Sheppard.
“We played a solid 45 minutes on Saturday and then decided to shoot ourselves in the foot.
“We took some selfish penalties and it cost us, it’s that simple.
“We knew Sunday was going to be tough, but it could have been different if we’d taken momentum from Saturday in with us.”
He added: “If we’re to be successful we need better goaltending and we need to be more disciplined at times.
“When we play as a team from the goaltender outwards I think we can compete with anyone, but at the minute we’re lacking consistency in both areas.”
There was a minute’s silence at The Hive on Saturday in memory of Bracknell’s 2016/17 player of the year David Gaborcik, who died last month.
League leaders Bracknell fell behind with barely a minute on the clock against Streatham as Andreas Siagris chipped in.
But there was a good response from the Bees, levelling up through Ben Paynter on the powerplay before Josh Martin put the hosts
2-1 up.
Just like the start of the first, Streatham came flying out of the traps in the second to equalise through Siagris again. However, Roman Malinik continued his good form in front of goal to open up a 4-2 advantage.
Leigh Jamieson halved the deficit 76 seconds into the third period before Alex Roberts brought parity in the 53rd minute.
Aidan Doughty looked to have resuced victory for Bracknell with his late strike, only a penalty to Josh Smith to prove costly as Jamieson netted again as Streatham sacrificed their keeper for an extra skater to make it six-on-four.
Overtime passed goalless and the first three penalty shots were all saved before Siagris found the net. Smith had to score to keep the contest alive, but his effort was tipped onto the post meaning Bracknell had to settle for a point.
It was a tense start on Sunday night as the Bees travelled to inform Peterborough.
The Phantoms then began to outshoot Bracknell and moved 2-0 ahead before the end of the first stanza with goals from Nathan Pollard and Scott Robson.
But Sheppard’s men came out firing after the restart to level the contest with Edward Knaggs and Shaun Thompson on target.
A Martin Susters goal early in the third put Peterborough back in front and a fourth goal arrived with little over 10 minutes to play through
Ales Padelek.
Bees threw on an extra outfield skater for the final two minutes but could not find a breakthrough as Phantoms saw out the win.