We are on the March to May, and the playoff push is heating up. One of the Week 19 marquee matchups was between the Buffalo Bandits and the Vancouver Warriors. Buffalo was coming in as one of the league’s hottest teams, while Vancouver was atop the standings. A raucous Banditland was ready for a heavyweight bout.
With the way the Bandits were playing as of late, and with Vancouver looking like they were in playoff form, one would assume this game would be tightly contested throughout. Well, it was for about the first quarter. From the 12:07 mark in the second quarter, all the way through the end of the game, Buffalo cruised on an 11-1 run. The final score was not tightly contested, as the Bandits continued their winning streak, beating up on the Warriors, 15-5. If you like the physical portion of lacrosse, there were 81 penalty minutes in the fourth quarter with three 10-minute misconducts and two fights.
The first quarter was back-and-forth. Adam Charalambides silenced the crowd inside KeyBank Center with a quick-stick goal to open the scoring. Joe Resetarits answered back for Buffalo with his first goal inside the new home barn. Charalambides came back with his second, but Buffalo punched back with two-straight, one from Dhane Smith and the other from Ian MacKay on the power play. 3-2 Buffalo after one.
The opening goal of the second quarter only took eight seconds, and it was courtesy of Dylan Robinson who won the faceoff and walked right in and scored. Vancouver answered back rather quickly with two of their own, one from Keegan Bal which was a snipe from distance and the other from Marcus Klarich. That’d be it for the Vancouver scoring for the rest of the frame. Buffalo closed out the second quarter on a four-goal run. Those goals were scored by Resetarits and Josh Byrne three-straight times, AKA a natural hat trick. 8-4 Bandits at the break.
“We’ve got to keep going”, said Paul Dawson. They’re a good team, we can’t stop. No transition on their end, they have a dangerous team back there. We’re just keeping them to outside shots for the most part.”
The game came to a screeching halt in the third quarter, as there were three total goals scored. That one Vancouver goal referenced at the beginning was buried by Klarich. As we said, that’d be the only goal they’d score the rest of the way. Buffalo scored the other two goals, specifically Clay Scanlan and Kyle Buchanan. 10-5 Buffalo after three.
There isn’t much to say about the fourth quarter other than Buffalo controlled every facet of it and there were a lot of tempers that boiled over. Buffalo tallied five more goals, courtesy of Byrne, Buchanan, Smith, Resetarits, and MacKay. At the 9:41 mark, the fight of the evening occurred as Steve Priolo and Matt Beers threw some haymakers for quite some time, resulting in Priolo “winning” and amping the crowd up even more than they already were. Make it six-straight for the Bandits.
Players of the game for Buffalo were Byrne (4+6), Resetarits (3+1), and Smith (2+7). Matt Vinc was downright silly all game long, stopping 22 of 27. Evan Constantopoulos saw a little bit of action in the fourth quarter, stopping all four shots he saw. For Vancouver, Charalambides (2+2), Klarich (2+2), and Bal (1+1) led the way. Christian Del Bianco struggled, stopping 32 of 45 in 48:18 of game play. Connor O’Toole came in in relief, stopping nine of 11.
“We trust each other”, said Byrne. “The core group has been together for a long time. I think it shows a lot of our guys and the character of our guys. There’s no quit in this group.”
“It was a good test for us tonight”, said Resetarits. “We stepped up, but we’ve got a long way to go still. When you’ve got the crowd behind you, it’s tough to play against. I’ve been on the other side for a long time and it’s not easy.”
“It feels good, I’m happy for the team”, said John Tavares about clinching a playoff spot. “I don’t want guys to get overly confident because of the score. We’re just playing to get the two points; it just confirms that we are a good team. We have to continue to earn everything that we get.”
Buffalo continues their hot streak with their eyes set on hosting a home playoff game. They clinched nonetheless, so that monkey is off their back. The Bandits stay on their home floor for their next contest as they welcome Rochester. That game is Saturday April 11th at 7pm. Vancouver still sits tied for first place. They look to get back to their winning ways in their next game against Halifax. That game is Friday April 10th at 9pm.
