Rock fall short to Bandits
Published
Buffalo, NY. – The Buffalo Bandits (4-0) stayed perfect defeating the Toronto Rock (0-5) by a score of 15-13 on Friday night at KeyBank Center in Buffalo, NY.
“There is no doubt in that room,” said captain Challen Rogers. “Yeah, we're 0 and 5, and our playoffs start next week, right? We just have to find ways to win. It just hasn't been going well for us this year. And that's on us. We have to earn our results. And we just haven't done that up to this point.”
The Rock started hot scoring twice early to build a 2-0 lead on goals from Brian Cameron and a power play marker from Challen Rogers in his first game of the season. Buffalo tied the score at 2-2, followed by the two teams exchanging goals to keep the score knotted 3-3. Josh Dawick’s second of the quarter followed by a Chris Boushy goal made it 5-3 Toronto with 4:20 to play in the first.
With the Rock up 5-4, a little Rock v. Bandits chaos broke out when a minor skirmish almost turned into a line brawl. The Rock’s Bill Hostrawser and Buffalo’s Nick Weiss had to be restrained from engaging in fisticuffs. Coming out of the fracas, the Rock found themselves on the power play. However, it was the Bandits scoring shorthanded off a restart with 0.5 seconds left on the clock when a long blast got by Nick Rose ending the quarter tied 5-5.
The Bandits scored the opening goal of the second quarter, but the Rock punched back with a pair from Corey Small and the Rock took a 7-6 lead. Following a Bandits’ goal that survived video review, Cameron unloaded his second of the game send the Rock to the halftime break with an 8-7 lead.
Buffalo’s Ian MacKay scored his third and fourth goals of the contest to surge ahead by a goal 9-8. Both Bandits goals came on a five-minute major for high sticking assessed to the Rock’s Josh Jubenville. With the teams back to even strength, Justin Martin scored just 18 seconds after the Buffalo go-ahead goal to tie the score 9-9. Chris Boushy scored his second of the game to put the Rock up 10-9 after three quarters.
Dan Craig scored on the power play just 18 seconds into the third quarter to put the Rock up by a pair, 11-9. The Bandits scored three in a row to put the home side up 12-11. Troy Holowchuk replaced Nick Rose in the Toronto goal following the Buffalo tally. The Rock broke up the Bandits’ run moments later with a goal from Boushy on a dunk from behind the net to complete the hat trick, tying things once again 12-12. Mitch de Snoo rumbled down the floor and pushed the Rock ahead 13-12 with 5:31 to play, but that lead didn’t last long as Buffalo tied the game 13-13. Buffalo got the game winner in transition from Nick Weiss with 43 seconds left and Dhane Smith scored an empty net goal late to seal the win for the Bandits.
“They are the best team in the league,” said Boushy. “We played with them for 56, 57 minutes. What else can you ask for other than a win? But yeah, there's a lot we can build on. I think this one stings, as they all do. We'll regroup Tuesday and we'll come in for a good home game against Sask next week.”
When the first whistle blew tonight, Nick Rose officially clocked his 200th career game, making him just the third player in franchise history to hit the plateau along with Colin Doyle (218) and Bob Watson (208). Rose then passed Watson in the 41st minute of the game for third place in NLL history with 10,444 career minutes played. Continuing with the milestone watch, Small’s first goal of the game was his 900th career NLL point. Mitch de Snoo also hit the century mark with 100 Caused Turnovers in his Rock career.
The Bandits outshot the Rock 52-37. Toronto was 3-for-7 on the power play, while Buffalo went 2-for-5.