After coming away with the huge Eastern Division victory over the Minnesota Swarm Friday night at the First Niagara Center, the Buffalo Bandits were faced with the difficult challenge of making it two wins in a row when they faced off against their Thruway rivals the Rochester Knighthawks at the Blue Cross Arena Saturday night. In their second of four back to back games on the schedule, the question tonight would be if the Bandits roster had enough gas in the tank against a well rested Knighthawks squad.
The game was truly a sight to see as both the Bandits (3-3) and the Knighthawks (2-2) see-sawed back and forth with huge goal runs throughout the night. In the end, it was the seven goal run by the Knighthawks in the fourth quarter that took them over the top with the 17-11 home victory.
“It’s a grind to play back-to-back games,” said Bandits head coach Troy Cordingley. “By no means is that an excuse, but Rochester had more energy in the fourth quarter. Obviously we dug a huge hole and gave everything we possibly had, but they had lots left in the tank.”
Leading the way for the Knighthawks in the victory tonight was the outstanding play of forwards Dan Dawson, Cody Jamieson and Joe Walters. Dawson led all scorers this evening with 11 points (11A) while Jamieson (4G, 3A) and Walters (5G, 2A) each had seven points.
Leading the charge for the Bandits in the loss to the Knighthawks was forward Dhane Smith (3G, 2A) with five points. Ryan Benesch (2G, 2A) had a solid effort with four points and both Mark Steenhuis (2G, 1A) and Alex Kedoh Hill (2G, 1A) each had three points.
In the opening fifteen minutes of the game, the Knighthawks asserted their dominance on both sides of the floor and proved to the Bandits why they are the three peat champions of the NLL.
Knighthawks transition specialist Jordan Hall helped put Rochester in the drivers’ seat early in the game by opening the scoring just 3:34 into the game to give the team the one goal lead. The Knighthawks power play then continued to pour it on for the next five minutes as they would receive two goals from Craig Point (who put one in the back of the net on a delayed penalty) and Jamieson (who scored as well with David Brock sitting in the penalty box for the Bandits on an illegal cross check penalty). The Bandits lone goal of the quarter from rookie Brandon Goodwin helped break up the Knighthawks three goal run before Rochester came roaring back with another three goal run that lasted the rest of the first quarter with one goal from Jamieson and back-to-back goals from Walters.
After 18 shots had been fired with six of them going past Bandits starting goaltender Anthony Cosmo in the first quarter, head coach Troy Cordingley decided that he had seen quite enough and pulled Cosmo for the rest of the first half and gave rookie backup Dave Diruscio his first shot between the pipes as a member of the Bandits. Cosmo would end the night with 21 saves out of 34 shots over 44:28 in the loss.
With the Bandits down 6-1 on the road in Rochester after fifteen minutes, Cordingley was not satisfied with his team’s sluggish performance.
“We had a slow start. We weren’t focused right from the get-go and we’ve got to learn real quick that we have to play 60 minutes.”
Bandits forward Mark Steenhuis also saw first-hand in the opening quarter why Rochester has been dominant for the past three years. “They’re a good defense. They’re not the three-time champs for no reason. They block shots and let Vinc kind of eat up those shots from the outside.”
The Bandits started the second quarter with a two-goal run as defenseman Billy Dee Smith fed transition specialist Jay Thorimbert on the breakaway for the goal and Hill performed a crazy pump fake that just slipped by Vinc’s right foot.
Not wanting to give the Bandits any hopes of a comeback in the first half, the Knighthawks responded with a four goal run of their own midway through the second quarter on goals from Joel Matthews, Hall, Jamieson and Walters. With the Knighthawks up by seven goals and less than two minutes left before the half, Smith received a stellar pass from forward Chad Culp who rocketed a shot past Vinc to help keep the Bandits within striking distance of Rochester’s 10-4 lead going into halftime.
“To have it 10-4 at halftime is unacceptable,” said Steenhuis. “That can’t happen and you’re not going to win in this league by doing that for a whole half.”
In just 15:32 of playing time for his first NLL game, Bandits rookie goaltender Diruscio did an admirable job regarding the circumstances and ended his night with 10 saves on 14 shots.
Little did anyone know at the Blue Cross Arena, Smith’s goal that came late in the second quarter would prove to be the start of an incredible run of eight goals for the Bandits.
With Cosmo back in net for the start of the second half, the Bandits shifted into overdrive and played like a team possessed for the next sixteen minutes. Benesch tallied two goals over the first 4:23 while Thorimbert, Steenhuis, Smith and Hill would each get a chance to put one past Vinc over the next seven minutes and incredibly tie the game at 10-10 after three quarters. With Vinc allowing six goals out of 16 shots in the third, it was the Knighthawks turn to bench their starting goaltender in favor of backup goaltender Angus Goodleaf Vinc ended his night recording 23 saves on 33 shots over 41:18. Goodleaf would remain their goaltender for the rest of the evening.
“You’re down by six goals, the way that we were playing we made some adjustments at the half, talking about effort,” said Bandits head coach Troy Cordingley. “The guys battled back which was a positive.”
Steenhuis was incredibly proud of the effort his teammates gave in the third quarter after facing some incredibly difficult adversity.
“We had every reason to stop playing there and let the game get out of hand. You’ve got to hand it to the guys in the room. We said that we weren’t going to let that happen, kind of an exact opposite of what happened last night.”
While the Bandits were continuing to pour it on offensively in the third, it proved to Cordingley that his team is truly capable of coming through in any situation as long as they stick to the gameplan.
“Once we started getting in the middle on them, we made them spread out a little bit. Offensively, we had some real shifts of brilliance. The proof is in the pudding that it works, but we have to have 100 percent buy-in.”
After taking sixteen minutes to fight back and claw their way back for the tie, the Bandits held the lead for approximately 31 seconds when Steenhuis scored at the one minute mark in the fourth quarter and Jamieson responded in kind for the Knighthawks.
Once the Jamieson goal was scored, it seemed that the Bandits offensive gas in the tank finally hit empty and Rochester floored it the rest of the way to the victory.
Jamieson’s goal proved to be the catalyst for an incredible seven goal run for the Knighthawks themselves as they received one goal from Hall, two goals apiece from Walters and Cory Vitarelli and the final goal of the evening from Craig Point en route to the 17-11 victory over the Bandits.
Goodleaf was on fire for the Knighthawks in the second half as he recorded 11 saves in 12 shots over 18:42 in the victory.
Buffalo’s next game will be Saturday February 7th at the Scotiabank Saddledome in Calgary for a showdown with the winless Calgary Roughnecks.
