By Budd Bailey
It was the type of split-second decision that can decide sporting events.
Steve Priolo of the Buffalo Bandits had taken a loose ball in his own end, and headed up the field. With the score tied at 13-13 against Toronto with less than a minute to go, he probably thought about calling a timeout in order for his team to set up for a potential game-winning goal.
Instead, he was aggressive … particularly when he saw Nick Weiss open in front of him in the Rock end. Priolo completed a pass to Weiss, who went alone when the defense adjusted slightly to guard against a pass to Josh Byrne on the right side.
“I’m glad I looked back when I did,” Weiss said. “The ball was already in the air. It would have been pretty awkward if it hit me in the head and didn’t get a shot.
“I caught it, and they went straight to J.B., and I had a lane. I went through a couple of fakes and shot, and it went in. When you have a great offense like we do, sometimes we don’t push it. But when we have the chance, we can go.”
It all worked perfectly. Weiss scored with 43 seconds left, the Bandits added an empty-netter, and Buffalo came away with a riotously entertaining 15-13 win over the Rock before 17,240 in the KeyBank Center Friday night.
“It wasn’t our best, but we came away with the win,” Bandits coach John Tavares said.
The contest was crammed with energy, filled with changes in momentum, controversial calls, spectacular goals, and plenty of penalties. Neither team had more than a two-goal lead. In other words, no one in the building asked for refunds after watching two hours and 41 minutes of action.
The intensity could have been expected. The two teams have been rivals almost forever, but this game featured a different script. Buffalo came into the game at 3-0, having won all of their games with relative ease. Toronto, meanwhile, was the only winless team in the league at 0-4 – quite a surprise for a franchise that has been a contender for most of the past 14 years. It would be an overstatement to say the Rock’s season was on the line this early in the season. Still, Toronto’s intensity was apparent from the opening faceoff.
“It was like the ultimate trap game coming in,” Ian MacKay said. “It’s an 0-4 Toronto team that shouldn’t be 0-4, and obviously we started the season pretty well. We knew coming in we couldn’t take them lightly and we had to have our best effort. …. Credit to those guys. They punched us in the mouth early, but I’m proud of our guys.”
“Their team is not indicative of their record,” Tavares said. “They’re a great team. We’ve had a lot of success against them in the last few years, so it could be a game where we might think we could just show up and win. But they showed a lot of fight. They have some great players on that team.”
The Bandits didn’t even have the lead for any point in the first quarter. Considering they had trailed for a total of a little more than six minutes in their first three games combined, it was an early sign that this was going to be a tough night.
And the word “tough” didn’t only apply to the back-and-forth scoring, considering that 81 penalty minutes were called. Weiss was involved in some hostilities late in the first quarter that sent him to the penalty box for 12 minutes.
“I had a pretty big lull between the first and second periods – a nice long break, unfortunately,” he said. “I can’t remember before the season the last time I had 10. Now I had one in Ottawa and then tonight.”
The man who did the most to keep the Bandits close on offense was MacKay. He had five goals, including one from long distance with less than a second to go in the first quarter that tied the game. MacKay finds himself on top of the Bandits’ goal-scoring list with 13 in four games. He had been in a transition role in the past, but often displayed the offensive skills that showed he could be a good fit up front if necessary. And it’s been necessary, especially when Chris Cloutier sidelined with an injury.
“Last year I was supposed to play a little more up front, but it didn’t work out,” MacKay said. “I love playing transition, and I’ve taken pride in playing there my whole career. … Lots of credit to the guys and (Tavares) for having the trust to put me up there.”
The fourth quarter was filled with drama. Buffalo had a tying goal taken away by the officials, and Toronto immediately responded by upping its lead to two. The Bandits responded by scoring three goals in 66 seconds to take the lead. The Rock changed goalies (Troy Holowchuk for Nick Rose), and bounced back with two goals to regain the lead with a bit more than five minutes left. Time counted down and the Bandits’ hopes shrank.
With the situation turning more serious by the moment, Chase Fraser came up with the tying goal with 1:13 left. The score was a bit unexpected, since the forward hadn’t made much of an impact on the scoresheet until then. Buffalo rode the momentum to remain as the league’s only unbeaten team, while the Rock is still the only National Lacrosse League team to have a zero in the win column.
No, it wasn’t easy. But the Bandits handled their first bit of adversity of the season with a comeback that two-time champions are capable of completing.
“The first three games, we’ve played well,” Tavares said. “Things have gone our way. We are not expecting every game to go that way. We expect a dogfight every game.”
The Bandits have had an odd schedule so far this season, filled with bye weeks. Now they actually play for two straight weekends, which will offer a chance to develop a little momentum.
“It’s been such a choppy start,” Weiss said. “It’s been so strange that some teams have played five, six games, and we’ve played four. I’m excited to get back to practice, game,
practice, game.”
Philadelphia comes to town on Saturday night, January 18, in the third game of a four-game homestand.
(Follow Budd on X.com via @WDX2BB)
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