Saturday night at Blue Cross Arena in Rochester, New York, featured the first installment of the I-90 rivalry between the Rochester Knighthawks and the reigning NLL Champions, the Buffalo Bandits. Historically, these games are always high intensity on the floor and in the stands. The crowd was almost split down the middle, as Buffalo fans traveled very well for this contest. It looked like a continuation from the playoffs last year, as Buffalo picked up right where they left off, cruising to a 15-7 win over their crosstown rivals. Don’t let the final score fool you, the game was very tight until the fourth quarter where the Bandits outscored Rochester 8-1 in the frame. The state of New York was set to do battle, here we go.
The first quarter was a feeling out process of sorts. Both sides were gauging the other and both defenses were as stingy as could be. Tehoka Nanticoke finally broke through with the first goal of the game, which turned out to be the only goal of the quarter. 1-0 Buffalo after one. Talk about a good start for the defending champs.
Less than two minutes into the second quarter, Thomas McConvey buried his first to tie it up, but once again Buffalo’s defense completely shut down Rochester the rest of the quarter. Buffalo tacked on three more to their lead and that felt commanding with how the game was going. Those three were courtesy of Josh Byrne and Dhane Smith twice. How many times have we seen and heard those two take over a game? 4-1 Bandits at the break.
“This was our first time with a full offense out there”, said Dhane at halftime. “They have a great team, a great offense. Our defense is holding down the fort, we just need to get going on the offense, obviously we depend on Vino, he’s great.”
Vino, (Matt Vinc) was more than great in the first half, along with the Buffalo defense. Vinc stopped 22 of 23. Riley Hutchcraft on the other side had quite the first half as well, definitely keeping Rochester in the mix. He made 25 saves on 29 shots.
Rochester proved Dhane’s point about their offense, as they came out red-hot in the third quarter. What looked like an insurmountable lead for Buffalo, was quickly erased to the tune of four-straight for the Knighthawks. Those four goals were scored in just shy of ten minutes and were scored by Turner Evans, Ryland Rees, Ryan Lanchbury, and Connor Fields. Just about two minutes after Fields’ goal to give Rochester the lead, Buffalo had the lead back. The Bandits rattled off two-straight, one from Byrne and the other from Chris Cloutier. Fields and Ian MacKay traded goals to close out the third, putting us at 7-6 Buffalo after three.
Back to Dhane’s points at halftime. He said they needed to get going on offense. Also, if you revert back to the beginning, we established that the Bandits blew this one open in the fourth to the tune of outsourcing Rochester 8-1. Cue the tide change. Buffalo rattled off the first three of the frame, courtesy of Kyle Buchanan, Nanticoke, and Smith. Lanchbury stopped the bleeding, but only for a moment, as his goal would be it for the Knighthawks the rest of the way. Following Lanchbury’s goal, Buffalo closed this one out with five-straight, the last two being empty-netters. Those goals were scored by Cloutier, Buchanan twice more, (the first being his 600th point of his amazing career), Dylan Robinson and Paul Dawson. Blue Cross Arena sounded like KeyBank Center for a good majority of the fourth quarter, and for good reason if you were wearing orange and black. Your final from the 585, 15-7 Bandits.
Players of the game for Buffalo were Smith (3+8), Buchanan (three goals), and Byrne (2+3). Vinc was a shining star all night, making 54 saves on 61 shots. Does this dude ever age? For Rochester, Lanchbury (2+2), Fields (two goals), and Evans (1+2) led the way. Hutchcraft had a solid game, with the exception of the Buffalo goal brigade in the fourth quarter. He stopped 47 of 60 in total.
“It starts with the guy between the pipes”, said Byrne after the game. “He was standing on his head, our defense played incredible. They gave us some time to really find our rhythm on offense. Our entire offense really beared down at the end there, so I’m proud of our guys for sure.” Finally, Byrne signed off by saying in front of the mass amount of Bandits fans behind him, “they come out to support us day in and day out, we couldn’t be more thankful to the city of Buffalo and to Banditland.”
Buffalo (1-0) had quite the showing in their defense of their back-to-back championships. Their next game is also on the road, this time taking on the Ottawa Black Bears (1-0). That contest is Friday night at 7pm. Rochester (1-1) need not fret, there is plenty of season left. They also hit the road for a clash against the Vancouver Warriors (0-1) this Friday at 10pm.
