Buffalo Bandits General Manager Steve Dietrich today announced that the team has agreed to terms on one-year contracts with forward Luke Wiles and transition player Scott Stewart, pending league approval.
“Luke is an elite offensive player in this league,” Dietrich said. “He has grown into a team leader whose sole focus is on helping Buffalo win the Champion’s Cup.”
Wiles (5’11”, 200 lbs., 7/28/82) joined the Bandits last season and immediately contributed on the offensive side of the floor, scoring a career-high 39 goals and adding 31 assists, ranking him second on the team in both goals and points. His 71 loose balls led all Bandits forwards and he led the team with 146 shots on goal.
“I took the summer off — the first summer I’ve had off since I was 6 or 7 — so I’m chomping at the bit to get back at it,” Wiles said. “I’m excited to be back; we have a lot of changes this year. We’re younger, we have an awesome goalie; [goaltender Anthony Cosmo] is one of the top guys in the world if not the top [goaltender].”
Wiles added that he expects the changes Dietrich made to the roster during the offseason to help re-energize the team’s offense and that, for him, “optimism is at an all-time high.”
“Shawn Williams is an unbelievable pick-up,” Wiles said. “He’s been around for a long time and he’s an awesome guy to play with because he’s very unselfish, so hopefully we can create a little bit more movement on the offensive end.”
Stewart (6’1”, 225 lbs., 4/23/79) appeared in 10 games with the Colorado Mammoth in 2012, tallying six points (5+1) and 44 loose balls, and avoided taking a single penalty all season. The 11-year veteran has played in 155 career regular season NLL games with six different franchises, totaling 313 points (151+162) and 761 loose balls.
“Scott is a veteran that has been a good transition player throughout his career,” Dietrich said. “We look forward to him continuing to battle [at training camp] for a spot out our defensive door.”
