Philadelphia, PA – The Buffalo Bandits rolled into Philadelphia again after a three week hiatus. They left once again with a solid divisional victory. This time by a closer, more hotly contested 12-8 score (the last game was an 18-10 blowout). The Wings gave the hometown crowd of 13,686 a much better showing than the last Buffalo visit, at least for three quarters.

The Wings were forced to play for the second game in a row without captain Jake Bergey. Tony Henderson, who has been a solid contributor as of late, was a late scratch. Despite this, Philadelphia headed into the game feeling confident after their first home win of the season over Arizona last week. This Wings team was much different than the one the Bandits beat up on three weeks ago. Nonetheless, the result was still the same…a Buffalo victory.

The Wings got the easily-excitable Philadelphia crowd into the game after forty-five seconds as Brian Tower scored the first goal of the night with assists from Tom Marachek and Ryan Ward. Neither team could break through the defenses as Wings’ Goalie Dallas Eliuk made a few big saves, only to be matched by his Buffalo counterpart, Steve Dietrich. It took the Bandits seven minutes to get on the board with a man-up goal by Jonas Derks from John Tavares. Tavares would find Mike Accursi two more times before the period was over, giving Buffalo a 3-1 lead heading into the second.

Peter Jacobs responded for the home team by scoring his first goal of the season. Picking up a looseball, Jacobs started off on the fast break, and (ignoring the pleas for him to pass the ball coming from the fans sitting around me) stuck the ball over the Dietrich’s right shoulder. Keith Cromwell would even the score for the Wings a few minutes later. Jason Crosbie responded with a man-up goal for the Bandits. With a little over a minute remaining in the half, the Wings got off four shots. The first three were stoned by Steve Dietrich. Jeff Ratcliffe put the fourth chance away to send the game into halftime at 4-4.

On the opening possession of the second half, the Wings controlled possession and in what appeared to be a desperation shot, Tom Marachek put a nice bounce shot from a step within the restraining line in the net with two seconds remaining on the shot clock. Six minutes later Keith Cromwell showed why he leads the Wings in assists. Cromwell fed a diving Dan Marohl, and twenty seconds later hit Ryan Ward who put the quick stick shot into the net to put the Wings up 7-4. This display of stick skills is something that has drastically changed since the last time the two teams played.

Not to be outdone, Buffalo would respond. AJ Shannon added the fifth Bandit goal seventeen seconds later, as he put on a clinic with a left-to-right split dodge, only to bring the stick back into his strong hand – left (in true NLL fashion not really using his weak hand) and finished it. John Tavares would cut the deficit to one four minutes later as he made a nice diving goal (though from my vantage point it could have been a crease violation – it was still a sweet play). Seventeen seconds later Mike Accursi added his third goal of the night tying the game at seven with the Bandits displaying the great ball movement as they did three weeks ago.

Buffalo struck first in the final period on a Jonas Derks goal. Philadelphia would respond a minute later as a pretty swim move gave the mismatch to find an open Mark Frye and subsequent goal. Buffalo wasn’t finished. Mark Steenhuis, aided by the hair sticking out of his ear-holes (see pictures), used his surprising strength to back in his defender and eventually get a quality shot that put the Bandits up 9-8. Thirty seconds later John Tavares would add another goal to give the Bandits a two goal lead. The Bandits’ Dietrich refused to be beaten, despite facing 53 shots throughout the game, as he added 45 saves, bettering Dallas’ Eliuk’s 32.

The Bandits would go on to add two goals (Tavares and Steenhuis) late in the game, taking advantage of the defensive pressure Philadelphia was applying to try and make up the deficit.

One of the biggest differences between this matchup and the previous, was the absence of players in the penalty box. The Wings in the first period alone had 17 penalty minutes three weeks ago. This game featured only a combined 16 minutes of penalty time.

The Wings continued to play well in the face-off circle, as Peter Jacobs and Paul Cantabene each had nine wins to two and four losses, respectively. Ten groundballs were added by Peter Jacobs and Andrew Guindon for the Wings, while Pat McCready added ten in the win.

Again, the Wings beat the Bandits in supposedly important statistical categories, such as a five groundball and a lopsided face-off advantage, nine more shots on goal, and also one less shot clock violation. However, the Bandits had one more man-up goal, four less penalty minutes, and of course 4 more goals as John Tavares and Mike Accursi both added three goals and three assists each for six points a piece. It’s interesting to note that on January 31st, the Wings and Bandits combined for 64 penalty minutes, this game featured only 16.

The Bandits looks to further its lead in the NLL East next Saturday against the Rochester Knighthawks, while Philadelphia looks to better its 4-4 record with two games against Toronto next weekend (Friday night in Toronto and Saturday in Philadelphia).