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Transcript of my customary Facebook postgame writeup:

Swarm Game 4: The Battle of Banditland

Major League Baseball has the New York Yankees. The NFL has the Dallas Cowboys. And the NLL has the Buffalo Bandits. Yet even marquee franchises fall on hard times every now and then, and the Bandits - just two seasons removed from their last NLL championship - are no exception. Their legendary offensive leader, John Tavares (uncle and namesake of the hockey phenom now playing for the New York Islanders), is recuperating from injury and still unable to play, and his team has suffered for his absence, starting the season 0-4 and averaging less than nine goals scored per game.

Such is the state of the Bandits as they host the Swarm this evening - hungry and desperate for a win, against a Blue Crew coming off an OT loss to Colorado that they've admitted to letting get away from them. Kevin Buchanan and Colin Achenbach finally get their first starts of the season! Nick Patterson starts in goal again tonight too - another show of faith on Coach Lines's part, not only considering his sub-par outing last weekend but his history of struggling against the Bandits. One team fighting for survival, the other for redemption. Let the battle begin!

First quarter: Buffalo's Kyle Schmelzle nearly scores on a fast break right off the opening faceoff, but Patty was up to the task. He made another fine save a couple minutes later. It didn't take long for Buffalo to get on the board first, though - Kevin Dostie and Mark Steenhius struck in rapid succession to break out to a 2-0 lead. Callum Crawford, on a feed from midcourt by Aaron Wilson, got the Swarm's first tally shortly thereafter on what seems to be his signature move this season: come in from the goalie's right, dive across the crease and stuff it in on the left side. Other than that, Bandits goalie Ken Montour looked very sharp in the opening quarter, giving up just one more goal (to Wilson) the rest of the way. At the other end of the rink, Frank Resetarits notched two goals 35 seconds apart late in the period. Bandits 4, Swarm 2.

Second quarter: The Swarm started the 2nd on a power play but not only couldn't score, but gave up a short-hander to Kyle Clancy. After this, the 5th Buffalo goal, Linesy had seen enough and replaced Patterson with Kevin Croswell - who didn't allow another goal the rest of the quarter, enabling the Swarm to mount a comeback. Birthday boy Ryan Benesch slipped through three defenders to score, followed by Kevin Ross and finally Crawford again - with under one second left in the half! This time Crawford split two defenders, faked out Montour to the left and then beat him on his right. The Swarm have done a great job this quarter keeping the heat on the Bandits' defense. If they can keep this up and wear them down they have a great chance. Bandits 5, Swarm 5.

Third quarter: For the first couple of minutes the Swarm picked up right where they left off at halftime. Then things fell apart in a hurry, as the Bandits evidently remembered how badly they need this win. Four goals in less than a five-minute span put Buffalo up 9-5, and as though that wasn't enough, their defense started taking the fight to the Swarm offense, breaking their siege that had been so effective in the second quarter. And Montour regained his early form and stopped every Swarm chance that his defense couldn't. All in all, a disaster for the Blue Crew, leaving them with a steep uphill climb in the game's final stanza. Bandits 9, Swarm 5.

Fourth quarter: Wilson tried to start a rally with a goal early in the quarter, and for awhile it looked like he and his offensive teammates might re-establish their earlier dominance. Unlike the second quarter though, Montour didn't crack this time. But by far the biggest sign that this just wasn't the Swarm's night came about midway through the period when their behemoth defender/transition man Richard Morgan picked a fight with Buffalo's Brandon Francis (6 inches shorter, 15 lbs lighter) - and lost. If Morgan was trying to spark his teammates, it obviously didn't go as planned. (Not to mention that the right time to try this would have been during the Swarm's third-quarter tailspin, not halfway through the fourth quarter with the game almost out of reach.) Two empty-netters by Buffalo (with Croswell pulled, and a Sean Pollock marker in between) finally sealed the deal and earned the Bandits their first win of the 2010 campaign. Final score: Bandits 11, Swarm 7.

Closing thoughts: Getting shut out for an entire quarter is the kiss of death in this league - and just four games into the season the Swarm already have been on the wrong end of the shutout quarter twice: the season opener in Calgary, and again tonight in Banditland. Lots of credit goes to Buffalo's offensive unit, which despite getting outshot 51-43 on the evening and blowing a three-goal lead in the second quarter, made the most of their third-quarter chances to retake the lead for good. But the real star of this contest was - surprise, surprise - Ken Montour, who stopped 44 of those 51 Minnesota shots. Things don't get any easier for the 1-3 Swarm, who now find themselves staring down the double-barrel of a home-and-home with the NLL's last remaining unbeaten team (as of this posting), the Washington Stealth.

Official game box score