Billingham Stars out to gain revenge for heavy defeat by Sutton Sting

Billingham Stars travel to IceSheffield tomorrow afternoon (4.15pm face-off) hoping to avenge one of their worst defeats in years as they take on fellow play-off chasers Sutton Sting in National League (North) Moralee Division One.

Their 8-1 win over the Ultimate Windows-sponsored Stars in November proved to be a false dawn as Sutton did not win again until last month.

However since turning over Manchester in their first game of 2015 they have been the team in form, winning four of their last five games and storming back up the League table to third, just two points behind tomorrow’s visitors.

The men doing the damage up front are Shaun Ashton and Richard Oliver, but Billingham’s biggest challenge may well be in figuring out how to beat the consistently excellent Dmitri Zimozdra between the pipes.

The Stars are looking to keep their own momentum going after picking up valuable points against play-off rivals Solway Sharks and Sheffield Spartans in recent weeks to retain second place.

With Blackburn Hawks looking uncatchable for the title, it is vital that the Teessiders maintain their form against the teams fighting it out around them for the remaining three play-off slots.

Confidence is high going into the game, but if they are to get anything out of the fixture they will have to do it without several key players.

Canadian Thomas Stuart-Dant remains side-lined with a hand injury so misses the opportunity to put one over his former club. James Moss and Ben Davison join him in the treatment room after taking knocks in the last few games.

Mark Watson will be backed up by Ben Gill in the Stars net with James Flavell unavailable.

Billingham general manager Allen Flavell remains optimistic despite missing players from every line tomorrow.

“We are expecting a very hard game down at IceSheffield but I believe we can get the job done,” he said.

“The Sting are a strong, physical outfit and they’ve come into form at just the right time, they are looking good for a play-off place and they won’t want to be dropping points at home at this stage of the season.

“We owe them for the hammering we took down there in November – we just weren’t on our game that day, we never really recovered from Chris Sykes being thrown out after just 21 seconds.

“We’ve come into some form ourselves lately, we are not second for nothing. Some of our forwards are really starting to get amongst the points.

“Michael Elder deserves a special mention – he’s on fire at the moment and he’s catching the two guys above him in the points-scoring table.

“He fully deserved his man-of-the-match award last weekend, he works so hard every game and now he’s putting his chances away.

“We need another big game from him and all of our forwards if we’re going to get past Zimozdra.”