The Buffalo Bandits defeated the Halifax Thunderbirds 11-10 on Saturday night at the Scotiabank Centre in Halifax.
It was a battle between two struggling teams. Buffalo came into the game losing four straight, while Halifax had lost three in a row. Buffalo started strong, being up 8-3 10 minutes into the second quarter. But their offence ran dry, and Halifax battled back to tie the game at 10 with 3:43 left in the fourth quarter. Bandits superstar Dhane Smith was the hero tonight and scored with 2:25 left to win it for Buffalo.
“We came out with one of our best starts of the year,” said Smith.” Obviously, every team wants to beat us because we’ve won (the championship) the past few years, right? So my speech at the beginning of the game was we need to show up too, we just can’t have nights off. We need to be our best as well. And I think tonight we played really well.”
It was a disappointing game for Halifax. They had a bad start, but once they pulled starter Warren Hill for Drew Hutchison after Buffalo’s seventh goal, they played much better. Halifax outscored Buffalo 7-4 during the back half of the game.
Offence has been an issue for Halifax, but they hit the double-digit mark for the first time in four games. While Clarke Petterson and Randy Staats carried most of the load with seven points each, they received supporting goals from Cody Jamieson, Jason Knox, Stephen Keogh and Bo BowHunter. If Halifax can receive some steady secondary scoring, that will go a long way toward getting them out of this rut.
Even with the positives, Thunderbirds assistant captain Jake Withers isn’t putting too much emphasis on moral victories.
“We’ve had a few good games to build off of at this point, so we kind of know what we’re made of. We got that fight in us that we are never going to go away. But at the end of the day, if you don’t start turning those into wins it is really all for nothing, right?” said Withers. “So we’re at the mid-way point, we’re 3-6, and it can go one of two ways here. We can continue on the path we’re on, or we can stick together and believe in one another and go from there. It starts with one (win) and focus on San Diego next week, and it is the only thing on our mind right now.”
Buffalo opened the scoring 40 seconds into the game. The Thunderbirds turned the ball over in transition, which allowed the Bandits to go the other way on a two-on-one. Ian MacKay passed it to Kyle Buchanan for the goal. Clay Scanlan added another to put Buffalo up 2-0.
Halifax answered back. Ryan Terefenko grabbed a loose ball in the offensive zone and burst down the middle, but his shot missed the net. Fortunately for him, the ball went off the glass and right to Randy Staats at the side of the net, and he fired it into the top corner. Staats added another a minute later to tie the game at two.
Tehoka Nanticoke scored two goals to stretch Buffalo’s lead. Buffalo ended the first quarter up 4-2.
The Bandits came out flying to start the second quarter. Thirty seconds in, Smith passed it to Ryan Benesch, running towards the goal, and he scored against his former team.
The Bandits kept coming. Josh Byrne and Matt Spanger scored to stretch Buffalo’s lead to 7-2.
“We’re a desperate team right now, as were they. I think we just wanted to change things a little bit. We had some slow starts in the past, and I think we really had that message that we wanted to come out flying,” said Smith.
Halifax pulled Hill and replaced him with Drew Hutchison. Hill was fine in this game; he made some excellent saves in the first quarter, and the goals he allowed were high-quality scoring chances. But they wanted to change the momentum.
“Buffalo is obviously a top-tier team; they’ve proved it over the past three years. Any mistake we kind of made there, they made us pay for it, “ said Withers. “They are a very streaky team, they play really well on momentum, and they put us behind the eight-ball. But we battled back and gave ourselves a shot.”
Halifax stopped Buffalo’s five-goal run with a transition goal. Graeme Hossack took the ball up the floor on a two-on-one with Clarke Petterson. Hossack passed it to Petterson for the goal.
However, Ian MacKay answered for Buffalo.
But Halifax wouldn’t be deterred. After Cody Jamieson had a goal called back, he shot the ball over his defender to score. Forty-seconds later, Clarke Petterson ran into the slot to score and ended the first quarter with Buffalo up 8-5.
Halifax opened the scoring a minute into the second half. It started with Drew Hutchison, who made a big rebound save on Clay Scanlan. Halifax went the other way, where Jason Knox had some open space down the right side, and he jumped over the crease to score to make the game 8-6.
Halifax made it a one-goal game courtesy of a hat trick goal from Clarke Petterson.
Josh Byrne broke the Thunderbirds’ run, and the third quarter ended with Buffalo up 9-7.
“Lacrosse is a game of runs, and we knew they were going to come back at somepoint,” said Smith. “ At the end of the day, we stuck with the game plan. We’re going to go through ruts as an offence, and our defence played really well all game. At the end of the day, it’s a game of runs, and we just had one more run than them.”
The Bandits opened the scoring in the fourth quarter courtesy of a transition goal from Cam Wyers.
Stephen Keogh answered for Halifax. He grabbed the ball behind the net and dunked for his first goal in his first game since being signed by the Thunderbirds on Jan. 21. Keogh is a veteran of 13 seasons and spent parts of 10 seasons with the Thunderbirds/Knighthawks franchise. He’s also an inaugural Thunderbird. The soon to be 39-year-old took last season off. In the 2023-34 season, he scored 38 points in 15 games for the New York Riptide.
“He’s a blue-collar, honest guy. You know exactly what you’re going to get with Keogh. He will give you a 100 per cent of effort a 100 per cent of the time. It is nice having him back on the front end, and I think he’s exactly what we needed up there to get some guys going and get the offence kind of moving,” said Withers.
Bo Bowhunter added another for Halifax to get the score to 10-9.
With 4:35 left to play, Max Wilson took a penalty for holding but the Thunderbirds took it too the Bandits. They got the ball deep into the right corner of the offensive zone. Keogh dug it out and went in on goal for a shot, but Bandits goalie Matt Vinc made the save. Jason Knox grabbed the rebound to score and tie the game at 10, nearly completing the comeback.
“A lot of the stuff we were getting beat on is stuff suits (the coaches) prepared us for throughout the week. For whatever reason, we didn’t implement that early in the game, “ said Withers. “It is kind of righting the ship and playing the way we know how to play, which is Thunderbirds defence. Hutchy (Hutchison) came in and did a wonderful job, the offence went going on the front end, and we were just putting shifts together.”
Dhane Smith answered for Buffalo with a shorthanded goal. He grabbed the ball and managed to get loose for a second off a screen. That was all the time he needed to fire the ball past Hutchison to regain their lead.
“I think Bucky (Buchanan) came up with an up-pick and slipped kind of thing, so I had a lane to the night, and I shot around the screen. I was struggling to score tonight, but I was able to get that one, so it was a big one,” said Smith.
That would be the game winner, and the Bandits won 11-10. Smith led the way offensively with a goal and six assists. Ian MacKay scored a goal and added five assists. Josh Byrne scored two goals and had five points, and Tehoka Nanticoke scored two goals. Mitch de Snoo led the game with 14 loose balls, and Matt Vinc stopped 41/51 shots.
For Halifax, Clarke Petterson and Randy Staats led the way with seven points each. Jason Knox scored two goals and four points, and Cody Jamieson had three points. Withers picked up 12 looseballs and won 14/25 faceoffs. Warren Hill stopped 14/21 shots, and Drew Hutchison stopped 24/28 shots.
After losing all three games on their homestand, Halifax will hit the road for their next two games. They play in San Diego and Calgary the following two Saturdays. Buffalo is on the road on the opposite coast next week when they take on Vancouver on Friday night.
