BRACKNELL Bees put up a spirited performance before losing 7-4 to Swindon Wildcats in a highly entertaining, but rather feisty encounter at The Hive on Sunday, writes Dave Wright.

They fought back from 3-1 down to level at 4-4 and were playing well enough to go on and win the game.

However, they ran out of steam, made a couple of errors, and conceded three goals in as many minutes late in the third period.

“It was a harsh scoreline,” said team captain Matt Foord, who was making his 600th EPIHL appearance.

The hosts nearly made a sensational start with Carl Graham quickly rattling the Swindon crossbar, but at the other end Bees home netminder Alex Mettam was tested by Toms Rutkis.

Mettam was beaten for the first time on 6:21 minutes when Corey McEwen opened the scoring.

Bees fell further behind to a goal from Aaron Nell on 7:38 but within three minutes had pulled a goal back through Milan Kostourek.

They were denied an equaliser by netminder Jordan Hedley before Nell scored again on 12:03.

Wildcats had both Carlo Finucci and Matt Selby in the sin-bin when Bees netted a power-play goal through James Galazzi on 18:34.

After five goals in the opening 20 minutes, the second period saw just one, with Foord making it 3-3 on 22:34, his 100th goal for the club.

Earlier, Galazzi and Selby removed their helmets to square up to each other, with the latter ending up the worse, with his blood having to be cleaned off the ice.

The respective punishments were six and four minutes.

The penalty minutes continued to pile up during the game, with the final tally being 24 for Bees and 28 for the Wildcats.

Bracknell's Josh Smith was in the sin-bin when Swindon regained the lead on 44:16 with Nell finding the target from beyond the blue-line.

Bees deservedly drew level on 51:58 thanks to a cracking shot from Galazzi, his second of the game.

“When Gazza scored I thought we would go on to win the game. (I felt) 100 per cent we had got it,” said Foord later. “We had the momentum and we put a lot of pressure on them.”

Sadly for the Bees, the rest of the game just did not go their way.

Nell put Swindon back in the lead on 56:23 to complete his hat-trick.

A minute later Jonas Hoog made it 6-4 and, with Mettam withdrawn, Hoog netted again on 58:17 to complete the scoring.

Galazzi was voted Bees' man of the match.

Vanya Antonov had taken the award the previous night when Bees lost 4-1 at Peterborough. Foord scored their goal on 36:01, while the Phantoms marksmen were Craig Scott (1:48 and 4:20), Darius Pliskauskas (23:29) and Lloyd Gibson (40:21).