SWINDON Wildcats strengthened their grip on the top of the NIHL South One table when they completed a weekend double over Basingstoke Bison with a 5-1 success on the road on Sunday.

Aaron Nell’s side began the weekend sitting pretty at the summit, with Bison their nearest challengers.

Having claimed a 4-2 victory on home ice on Saturday, Swindon again showed they will be the team to beat in the race to finish top of the standings in the reverse fixture in Basingstoke to make it 12 league wins in a row in total.

Goals from Loris Taylor and Jonas Hoog put the Cats in control in the first period, with the visitors then doubling that advantage in the second session as Chris Jones and Hoog again hit the back of the net.

The onslaught continued in the final period as Stevie Whitfield put Swindon five goals to the good, and more than 50 minutes had passed before Bison finally got on the scoreboard through Ashley Tait.

However, that was only a slight blemish on the Cats’ heroic overhaul, and they had the satisfaction of travelling home having taken a big step towards finishing the league season on top of the pile.

Speaking after the game Head Coach Aaron Nell was quick to praise the efforts of his troops after the effort they put in all weekend against the Bison, taking them to 12 league wins in a row.

“It was our best performance of the season, it was a total team performance and they all deserve huge credit for the efforts they put in this weekend.

Of course Peterborough losing is good for us, but we just have to worry about ourselves. We need to continue to take it a game at a time. Hopefully if we continue to do that we can finish the job off.

London will be a tough game, they’ve won two of the last three against us and it’s going to be just as tough as this weekend. They obviously turned Peterborough over on Sunday too, so we have to be at our best to make sure we get the result we want. We can enjoy the weekend, but we have to refocus quickly and work hard again in training this week. 

Of course Renny was fantastic yet again, but the whole team were. I couldn’t be prouder of the way they played for 120 minutes over the weekend.”