Bandits postgame: Fourth quarter meltdown dooms result

What should have stood out as the stat of the night ended up being nothing more than an afterthought for the Buffalo Bandits. A stingy third quarter effort was wasted as the Bandits gave up six fourth quarter goals in a 13-10 loss to Philadelphia.

After a see-saw first half, the Bandits defense clamped down in the third quarter. Buffalo shut out the Wings for the duration of the third and scored two of their own to take a 9-7 lead into the fourth. The Bandits actually held Philadelphia scoreless for 26:04 between the second and fourth quarters.

We didn’t play our best game, that’s disappointing. We had our chances, we could have gone up by three or four goals and it might have been a different game.  ~ Darris Kilgour

The fourth quarter was a different story. Pat Heim scored 2:59 seconds into the stanza and Drew Westervelt added the game-tying goal just 18 seconds later. Westervelt finished with seven points (3+4). Buffalo did not recover from the turnaround, getting outscored 6-1 in the final quarter.

The Wings hung around for most of the night, keeping the deficit no deeper than two goals at any point. Unlike last week’s win in Rochester, the Bandits failed to establish a run which ultimately cost them. Buffalo’s offense appeared sloppy at multiple points during the game, ill-advised passes and poor shot selection turned the ball to Philadelphia in transition on multiple occasions.

The Bandits have a quick turnaround tonight. They fly directly to Minnesota for their first test against a West Division foe. The Swarm are coming off a two-week layoff and into their home opener. They will be a fresh team, but one that hasn’t played since January 14.

• Tom Montour and Frank Resetarits each made their season debuts tonight. Resetarits stepped in for Mat Giles and Montour stepped in for Jimmy Purves. Montour was effective and showed his skill set on multiple occasions. Resetarits struggled a bit more on the offensive side. Giles was strong for the first two weeks, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him back tomorrow.
• Mike Thompson looked to be fighting the ball throughout the game. He made some big saves in the third quarter, but yielded quite a few questionable goals throughout the game. “I felt like I should have had a few of them,” Thompson said. “I felt like I had some holes in my arms or something.” It was good to seem him laugh off the performance. Obviously he is the guy the Bandits need moving forward, he was just slightly off this evening.
• Philadelphia head coach Johnny Mouradain has a problem any NLL coach would want. He has a plethora of talented right handed shooters. Brendan Mundorf (3+4 tonight) is a Bandit killer and lethal from the outside. Dan Dawson can create from anywhere and Kevin Crowley is also a dangerous scorer. He scratched Duke standout Matt Danowski in favor of his big-three, as he referred to them. He noted that Danowski will have to be ready to play. Obviously his transition to the indoor game is still coming around.
• You might say Mark Steenhuis had a breakout game. He was relatively quiet through the first two weeks, but looked like the 51-goal scorer of old tonight. He finished with four points (2+2) and scored two goals that should have been major momentum shifts for the team. He is as tough a competitor as anyone I have ever met and takes losses hard. He offered good insight on tonight’s set back: “These are the games you think ‘if only we could have squeaked that out’, We need to take it as a good lesson and move on.”
• Tomorrow’s game in Minnesota will be important for the Bandits’ standing in the East. Dropping to .500 would be disastrous, especially considering a 3-1 record would inch Buffalo’s hands closer to the East Division throat.