Bandits edge Rush in 'must win'

By Budd Bailey

It’s difficult to imagine a more dramatic midseason indoor lacrosse game than the one that saw the Buffalo Bandits beat the Saskatchewan Rush, 11-10 in overtime, on Friday night. The subplots could have filled up a television mini-series.

The Bandits came into the game having lost five of their last six games to fall to 4-6 on the season. For a team that had won three straight championships entering this season, this was unacceptable. Buffalo hadn’t dropped five of six in nine years. The skid left Buffalo looking up at the playoff spots for the time being.

To add to the tension, the Bandits’ general manager Steve Dietrich said on the pregame radio broadcast that he might have some tough decisions to make about personnel before the trading deadline if there weren’t signs of an immediate turnaround … as in this weekend.  

Meanwhile, Saskatchewan had won nine games in a row and was 10-1 overall. The Rush had the added incentive on Friday on playing the team that knocked them off in the NLL finals almost a year ago.  

Therefore, when Josh Byrne scored with a shot from high in the slot, Bandits’ coach John Tavares didn’t know whether to feel joyous or relieved at first.

“There was a lot of relief,” coach John Tavares said. “This was a much-needed win in the season. We had a great game against Vancouver, which is a great team, and we played another great team tonight. We still have a great team. We put ourselves in a bad situation and it’s definitely a relief to get the win and get back in the playoff hunt.”

“There’s a lot of weight on the shoulders,” goalie Matt Vinc said. “It’s not been for lack of trying. There have been some mental lapses in some games. We shot ourselves in the foot. Here we got the last bounce, and we go from there.”  

The Bandits needed their best effort of the season in order to defeat the Rush, and they certainly did it in the most important and most exciting game of the season to date.

“They’re trying to give me a heart attack,” Tavares said. “We could have given up in overtime, but we fought through it. … It’s nice to see the boys finding a way to win.”

“There’s no question that we haven’t put ourselves in a very good position so far this year,” Ian MacKay said. “As much as you want to hide from it from those games, you can’t. We have to erase that. The playoffs start now.”

The pregame talk in the Bandits’ locker room centered on some of the team’s veterans. Players like Vinc, Paul Dawson and Kyle Buchanan are all at the age where playing is a year-to-year decision. The other players thought they needed to help the veterans out by playing better than they had been in the past several weeks.

“Guys like Vino, Bucky, Dawson – they all made the decision to come back this year when they could have gone away on top,” MacKay said. “As much as we should acknowledge that, we haven’t played like that. If you can’t get up for a game, just look at those three guys. I challenged our guys to find something from within.”

Friday’s contest, which kept 17,595 in the KeyBank Center entertained if nervous, followed a script throughout the night. Buffalo scored the first three goals to take the lead, and never gave it up for the rest of the night. But the Rush kept rallying to get within striking distance. Back and forth the flow went throughout the game.

On offense, the Bandits returned to an old formula of having Byrne and Dhane Smith set up the rest of the forwards for goals. They combined for 11 assists on the night, while MacKay had four goals, and Tehoka Nanticoke and Buchanan had two each.

“It was pretty spread out,” MacKay said. “As much as want to see Josh and Dhane have 10 points every night, it’s good to see the depth scoring. I don’t think we’ve had that this year.”

“We’re trying to find our groove,” Byrne added. “We’re playing a different brand of lacrosse than in years past. I think we’re starting to understand it.”

At the other end, the Bandits’ defense was quite solid for most of the night. Helping was the fact that the last line of defense, Vinc, had three superb saves on Saskatchewan breakaways. Buffalo had a two-goal lead with less than two minutes left, and victory seemed probable if not secure.

“It was like playoff lacrosse,” Vinc said. “We were active. We made it tough on them to get loose balls. … That’s the type of urgency we need to play with.”

But nothing has been easy for the Bandits this season. Ryan Keenan scored his fourth of the night to cut the lead to 10-9 with 90 seconds to go, and Robert Church tied the game 33 seconds later.

“I thought in the later stages of the game, they had the ball quite often,” Tavares said. “If you knock on the door enough, someone is going to answer it eventually.”

Both teams had chances in overtime, including a play where Clay Scanlan of Buffalo was ruled to have stepped in the crease a split-second before the ball entered the net. Finally, and mercifully, Byrne sent almost everyone home happy with a goal at 6:47 of extra time.

“(MacKay) set an unreal pick,” he said. “We talked about it – it was perfect timing. I was in my spot. … I’m proud of the guys bearing down.”

The Bandits didn’t need any reminding that this was an important first step forward, but it was only a first step. There’s still plenty of work to do to reach a playoff spot, and the next chance to do some of it comes Saturday night in Hamilton, Ont., where Buffalo plays Toronto. The team says it will be ready.

“It’s a lot easier (to play on back-to-back nights) after a win than a loss,” Vinc said.

(Follow Budd on x.com via @WDX2BB)