BUFFALO, N.Y. — For the second year in a row, the Buffalo Bandits stand atop the National Lacrosse League.
The Bandits captured their second straight NLL title Saturday night at a sold out KeyBank Center, defeating the Albany FireWolves 15-13 to cap off the sweep in the NLL Finals.
With the win, Buffalo has now won the NLL Cup six times in the franchise's history. It marks the first time the Bandits have won back-to-back championships since 1992-1993.
Kyle Buchanan gave the crowd of 19,000 in Banditland the first goal to cheer for, when he opened the scoring for Buffalo less than two minutes into the game.
That marked the start of an 8-3 Buffalo run that spanned the first 21 minutes of the game.
Albany managed to rally, however, over the rest of the first half, and scored early in the third quarter to pull to within one goal, at 9-8.
From there though, the Bandits regained firm control of the game, ripping off five goals in a row to close out the the third quarter. Chase Fraser provided three of the goals during that run, with Josh Byrne and Dhane Smith scoring the other two.
Fraser led the way for the Bandits with five goals on the night, while the newly crowned MVP, Byrne, tallied the most points on the night with nine, including eight assists.
After winning four championships with Buffalo as a player, John Tavares also now captured his second title with the Bandits as the team's head coach.