As has been the case with other Sky matches that the Bees have been involved with, tonights match served up some incident, some great racing, and a last heat race to decide the destiny of the 3 points on offer.
The meeting began badly for the Bees with the Hammers gaining the early advantage by winning heat 1 by 5-1 maximum, to open an early 4 point lead.
However the Bees slowly chipped away at the gap to eventually level the progressive score to 21 each at the end of heat 7.
Sadly the Hammers took a decisive hold of the match in heats 8 and 10 with two maximum 5-1's which, as hard as the Bees tried to cut back, was too much of a deficit.
The Bees cause wasn't helped when they failed to take advantage of re-runs in heats 9 and 11, where a Hammers rider had been excluded, and in both these re-run races Kauko Nieminen started well and won both.
Heat 12 was the race of the night between Edward Kennett and former Bee Lee Richardson, who passed and re-passed each other at least once per lap, before Kennett drove on the inside of Richardson on turns 1 & 2 of the final lap to push him wide and take the race win.
The Hammers had won the match on the night going into heat 15 45-39 ahead, but the extra point was still available to the Bees if they could keep the match score to 6 points or less.
From the start it was the Hammers pairing of Shields and Davidsson who led the way, but luck was on the Bees side for as they kept in close touch with the Hammers, Shields bike slowed to allow both to pass.
Even then the race wasn't settled for Kennett then fell and re-mounted his machine to get going, just ahead of Shields to grab the vital third place point to make the score on the night Lakeside Hammers 48 Coventry Bees 42.
Tonights scorers for the Bees were:
1. Chris Harris: 1. 2. 2. 2
2. Ricky Wells: 0. 2'. 0.
3. Oliver Allen R/R: (FS:1') (FS:1) (JF:0)(EK: )
4. Edward Kennett: 2. 3. 1. 3. 2. 1'
5. Rory Schlein: 3. 3. 2. 1'. 2
6. Filip Sitera: 3. 1'. 0. 1. 1'. 1'. 1
7. Jordan Frampton: 0. 1. 1. 0. 1'