By Budd Bailey
Breaking news: The Buffalo Bandits lost a game on Saturday night.
For some teams, that wouldn’t be a bulletin. But the Bandits’ last loss came on March 22, 2024 – almost 11 months ago – to a now-defunct team called the Panther City Lacrosse Club.
The 16-game win streak finally ended when the San Diego Seals knocked off Buffalo, 14-13 in overtime, before 18,224 at the KeyBank Center. As the song goes, they say all good things must end sometime.
“We have to be proud of it,” Bandits coach John Tavares said about the streak. “It was a long run and it had to end sometime. The goal wasn’t to go 18-0. We have to reset.”
The ending seemed particularly cruel because the team had been digging itself out of holes all weekend. On Friday, Buffalo erased an early five-goal deficit in one of the best comebacks in team history. Only 24 hours later, the Bandits allowed the Seals to score the first four goals of the game.
“It was a little déjà vu,” Ian MacKay said. “We knew we had fallen behind the previous night, but we also had the memory of fighting back through it. Obviously, we don’t want to start like that. In the first quarter we had three or four good chances. … It wasn’t for a lack of effort. We just weren’t hitting our shots.”
The Seals led most of the way, but the Bandits kept coming back after that slow start. One of the Buffalo goals came from an unexpected source. Connor Farrell, the jovial bull of a faceoff specialist who has been gaining folk hero status in Banditland lately, scored the first goal of his NLL career to tie the game at 6-6. The roar from the near-sellout crowd almost overwhelmed Farrell.
“I really don’t remember it,” Farrell said about the play. “It was so loud. It was really unbelievable. I knew I wanted my first one at home. It was a real experience. I couldn’t even hear the whistle for the next faceoff.”
The Bandits finally passed the Seals early in the fourth quarter. Alas, San Diego’s Zack Currier tied the game with about six seconds left. Then in overtime, Wes Berg grabbed a loose ball in the midst of a scramble in front of the goal crease and stuffed home the game-winner. It was his fifth tally of the night.
The first thought was that the Bandits might have run out of gas in this game. Playing back-to-back games is unusual in the National Lacrosse League, and the Seals no doubt were resting in a Buffalo-area hotel Friday night while Buffalo was busy winning.
“The reality of this league is that there are double-headers,” MacKay said. “Being behind, fighting, is definitely tiring. You don’t want to ease up when you’re ahead, but when you have the lead, it does feel a little easier.”
“We made some serious mistakes and unforced errors,” Tavares said. “It caught up to us at times. … I don’t think it was the back-to-back. Playing catch-up takes the energy out of you.”
But that probably doesn’t give enough credit to San Diego, a team filled with veterans who have been through tough situations many times in the past. The Seals trailed 13-11 with about five minutes left when Berg reduced the margin to one. San Diego seemed to tie the game with about 40 seconds left on a goal by Berg, but that was disallowed on a crease violation. So Currier played Beat the Clock in the final moments, and Berg did the rest in OT.
It was striking how this game resembled the Bandits’ last loss, which came in Fort Worth Texas on March 22, 2024. On a back-and-forth night, Callum Crawford scored the tying goal for Panther City with 20 seconds to go in regulation. Then Jonathan Donville won it at 1:32 of overtime.
The Bandits still lead the NLL with a 7-1 record. Even better, they’ll have some time to rest up for their next game – a Saturday contest in San Diego against the streak-breaking Seals. You might guess that the team will be ready for that one.
“This will make it easier for us to get up to play them,” Tavares said. “When you go from a cold climate like we have here to a warmer climate, you have to remind the guys that it’s business first. They’re a great team. This gives us a little more incentive to prepare.”
And at some point – probably fairly soon – the 16-game win streak will be a source of pride for the Bandits.
“Honestly, I had no idea about that,” MacKay said. “It’s cool to hear. Dating back to last year, I remember the loss in Fort Worth. It might have been the worst game of my career. But we started from there, and you obviously want to be the only team to end the season with a win. We were able to do that, and then continue it into this year.”
(Follow Budd on X.com via @WDX2BB)
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