INDOOR LACROSSE
Bandits fall in OT; lose 2nd straight
ROCHESTER — In a terrific matchup between two old rivals, the Rochester Knighthawks had the loudest and last roar of the night.
Shawn Evans scored at 4:23 of overtime to lift the Knighthawks to a 15-14 win over the Buffalo Bandits before 9,134 in noisy Blue Cross Arena. The loss was the Bandits’ second in a row, and dropped their record to 7-3. With the Boston Blazers losing, the Bandits are still a half-game ahead in the Eastern Division, but that wasn’t much consolation to a Buffalo team that let one get away.
Evans, the Knighthawks’ second-leading scorer, ended the game by scoring on the end of a two-on-one.
“I saw the odd-man rush and just ran out,” Evans said. “Chappie [Sandy Chapman] made a good pass. I saw an opening and put it in.”
“Shawn Evans was cradling the ball, and he put it over my leg and under my hand,” Bandits’ goalie Ken Montour said. “It was a goal scorer’s goal.”
“I thought we made a very bad decision on the last goal of the game,” Buffalo coach Darris Kilgour said. “Shawn Evans is their premiere scorer. He’s two-on-one with the defensive guy on his wrong side. He chose to let Shawn shoot, which is a bad decision. When you make a decision like that, that’s where it usually ends up — in the back of the net.”
It was Evans’ fourth goal of the game to go along with six assists. Craig Point added four goals for the Knighthawks. For Buffalo, John Tavares led the way with four goals and three assists.
The Bandits had a huge contingent of fans make the trip down the Thruway for the game, and they went back and forth with the Knighthawks’ partisans in an atmosphere that resembled a Sabres-Leafs game in Buffalo. Rochester’s boosters did most of the celebrating in the early going, as the Knighthawks jumped out to a 5-1 lead midway through the first period. The Knighthawks figured to come out strong after losing to Buffalo, 23-6, in January, but Kilgour still wasn’t happy.
“We need to match their intensity. We can’t be dropping down by four or five goals,” he said. “But we did battle back . . . On defense we definitely took some steps in the right direction.”
The Bandits rallied to get within 5-4 after 15 minutes, and had a 10-9 lead at halftime. The action slowed down a bit in the third quarter, as the teams finished tied at 12 after 45 minutes. All the fun began with about eight minutes to play in regulation.
Mike Accursi put Buffalo up, 14-13, but was called on a crease violation to wipe out the goal. (Accursi said he wasn’t sure if he stepped over the line.) Before anyone had a moment to get set, Shawn Williams scored at the other end to give Rochester the 14-13 lead instead. When Cory Bomberry picked up a major penalty for roughing with 7:28 left, it looked like the Bandits were in huge trouble. But Montour was brilliant for the next three-plus minutes to keep the Bandits within a goal until Rochester was called for two penalties.
Accursi scored on a rebound of a Mark Steenhuis shot with 1:04 left in regulation. Everyone in the building stood for the rest of the game, which featured a long supply of dramatics. Roger Vyse, who had three goals, no doubt will be thinking for quite a while about a shot that he shoveled just wide of the net in overtime.
“I wanted to get it off quickly before the goalie had a chance to come across,” he said. “It missed by a couple of centimeters. Overtime is exciting. You want to get a goal early. The longer you stay on the field, the game gets even tighter.”
Once Evans scored, the glow of the Bandits’ great start (5-0 and 7-1) faded a bit more.
“We can’t just show up and win,” Accursi said. “We have to come with effort. If we don’t come with effort, other teams are going to. We’re the champs. We’ve got big targets on our backs.”
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