[mks_col]
[mks_two_thirds]
Bandits Split Weekend With Loss to Knighthawks
Takeaway Moments
The Rochester Knighthawks are back at .500 with the 17-11 victory… the Buffalo Bandits move to .500 as well with the split weekend in New York….Rochester, who had not hit double-digits in their previous two games, had 10 goals by halftime… Buffalo took their first lead of the night in the 4th quarter… the Knighthawks then blew the game out with a 6 goal run to secure the victory.
Jerome Thompson was held quite after his breakout performance on Friday… no Bandit scored more than 2 goals in the game… penalty time was kept to 13 minutes, positive for the Bandits… Dhane Smith was the only player to collect even 5 points for Buffalo on Saturday.
Joe Walters led the way with 5 goals and 2 assists… Jordan Hall scored 3 goals and earned 2 assists… Cody Jamieson finished Saturday night off with 4 goals and 3 assists… Angus Goodleaf relieved Matt Vinc in the 4th to collect the W by only allowing 1 goal to slip by in 12 shots… nearly 7k fans packed out the Blue Cross Arena on Saturday night.
Boxscore
MD’s Take
Although it was 10-4 at the half, the Bandits dominated the third quarter, scoring 6 goals and shutting out the Knighthawks. They took their only lead off the game to kick off the fourth, before Rochester went on a crazy 6 goal run to close the game out 17-11.
Joe Walters is doing his thing but guys like Cory Vitarelli, Cody Jamieson, Jordan Hall, Dan Dawson, Angus Goodleaf (after replacing Matt Vinc only let in 1 goal on 12 shots) and Craig Point are doing their jobs and doing them extremely well right now and have been since the embarrassment to New England on Week 2.
The Bandits had a good thing going in Thompson in the first game of the weekend but he was essentially quiet in game 2. They have done so much better at staying out of the sin bin, in both games combined they earned 19 total minutes which is exactly half of the 38 minutes they racked up in week 4. This weekend they are heading into a grueling challenge trying to take on a winless and angry Roughneck squad in the Calgary Saddledome.
These two teams exchange a home and away series in two weeks. The advantage goes to the Hawks getting week 6 off to rest up and watch the Bandits go compete in Calgary. We will check back in on this next week.
Around the League
“We were just burying our opportunities,” Dawson said. “I thought we swung the ball a lot better tonight. Don’t get me wrong, we had three or four that were lucky goals, but those are the ones that weren’t going in last week or the week before. If you’ve played this game for a long time, you know the bounces eventually will go in your favor if you work hard and stay with the process. It showed tonight.”
From NLL.com
[mks_icon icon=”fa-youtube-play” color=”#dd3333″ type=”fa”] Game Highlights
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCPsWrRa6bs
[/mks_two_thirds]
[mks_one_third]
[mks_icon icon=”fa-rss” color=”#dd3333″ type=”fa”] Related Articles
• Thruway .500: Knighthawks outrace Bandits, 17-11 (NLL.com)
• Bandits rally but fall to Rochester in the end (Buffalo News)
[mks_separator style=”solid” height=”4″]
NLL Report TOC
1 – Results & Pick ‘Em
2 – Bandits/Swarm
3 – Rush/Black Wolves
4 – Rock/Roughnecks
5 – Knighthawks/Bandits
6 – Stealth/Mammoth
7 – LaxAllStars of the Week
[/mks_one_third]
[/mks_col]
