Albany set for rematch vs. champ
At the midway point of the regular season, the Albany Firewolves are looking down at the defending champion Buffalo Bandits in the National Lacrosse League standings. Who would have thought? The Firewolves (7-2) look to stay in first place and knock the Bandits (5-4) down to .500 when they meet Saturday night at Keybank Center in Buffalo.
Albany is going for a regular-season sweep of Buffalo after beating the Bandits 17-13 on Dec. 9 at MVP Arena.
“They (Buffalo) need to win,” Firewolves coach Glenn Clark said. “I would think that is their motivation. They don’t want to be a .500 team. I can’t remember the last time 10 games in that Buffalo, if they lost, they’ll be 5-5. You’d have to go back quite a while to have them as a .500 team past the halfway mark. So I think that’s their motivation is their continued success and putting themselves in position to make the playoffs.”
Buffalo went 8-10 in the 2018 season, but has since gone 14-4, 7-4 (shortened by COVID), 14-4 and 14-4 the past four seasons.
Albany is tied with Toronto for first and Buffalo sits in sixth place. The top eight finishers in the 15-team league qualify for the NLL playoffs.
With their December win over Buffalo, the Firewolves served notice they were to be taken seriously after finishing 3-15 last season. Albany can reinforce its status as a contender by winning in Keybank Center, where the Bandits average more than 16,000 fans per home game.
“Good teams can repeat good performances,” Clark said. “I don’t necessarily want to hang that it’s if we don’t win, we’re not a good team, if we win we are a good team. But you’ve got to be able to put up good performances consistently. I think this is one of those games where we need to have a good showing, put ourselves in the fight and put ourselves in position to win because it’s so hard to call wins in the NLL.”
Rookie Alex Simmons leads the Firewolves with 48 points, while Buffalo’s Josh Byrne and Dhane Smith are second and third in the league with 62 and 61 points, respectively.