Bandits Win Indoor Lacrosse Title

The Buffalo Bandits are champions again.  

The Bandits won the National Lacrosse League (NLL) Cup on Saturday night with a 13-4 victory against the Colorado Mammoth in the decisive third game of the National League League championship series in front of a near capacity crowd of 18,296 at KeyBank Center.

It is the fifth title in Buffalo’s indoor lacrosse franchise history, and first since 2008. The Bandits had lost in three previous trips to the NLL Finals since 2016, including last season, when the Mammoth won the championship in Buffalo.

Buffalo's Josh Byrne had four goals and three assists to lead the Bandits after missing the first two Finals games with an upper-body injury. Byrne finished with 14 goals and 33 points in four postseason games.  Bandits goaltender Matt Vinc stopped 46 of 50 shots he face for a sterling .920 save percentage.

Byrne scored a goal to end the first quarter, giving the Bandits a 2-1 lead 15 minutes into the game. Chase Fraser then stepped up for the Bandits in the second quarter. His two goals pushed the lead to three, before Buffalo eventually went to the locker room at halftime with a 4-2 lead. When play resumed, Byrne quickly got back to work. He scored the first two goals of the third as the Bandits extended the lead to 6-2. Byrne later scored again, as did Dhane Smith, and Buffalo led 8-3 going into the fourth.  Chris Cloutier, Matt Spanger, Brad McCulley, and Max Adler all added goals for the Bandits, who pushed the lead to 12-4 with a little more than 10 minutes to play.

The Bandits finished the regular season with a 14-4 record and first place in the Eastern Conference.  They dominated Rochester 20-8 in the conference semifinals and swept Toronto 2-0 in the conference finals.  The Bandits took the first game of the finals 13-12 at home then lost 16-10 in game two in Denver forcing Saturday's third game.

Watch highlights from Game 3 here.