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BLAZERS SPOIL PARTY IN BUFFALO, WIN IN OT

Bandits drop to #2 seed in East, Dawson ties new single season assists record

04/17/2009

The Boston Blazers prevented the Buffalo Bandits from clinching their second consecutive East Division regular season title by winning an overtime affair at HSBC Arena, 13-12, on Saturday night. Forward Sean Morris scored the game-winner just 26 seconds into overtime on the same night when teammate Dan Dawson tied Josh Sanderson for the league lead and new single season record for assists with 74.

Bandits forward Mark Steenhuis opened the scoring 54 seconds into the game with his 49th goal of the season. With 52 seconds left in the first quarter, Steenhuis scored again to notch his 50th goal of the season and give the Bandits a 5-4 lead. That lead was stretched to 8-4 during the second quarter, as the Bandits went on a 3-0 run to begin the period. The first goal of that stretch was scored by forward Brett Bucktooth, who played in his first game of the year after sitting out the previous 15 games due to an injury. John Tavares scored the other two, giving him 49 goals at that point and helping the Bandits to an 8-5 halftime lead.

Tavares scored again 1:30 into the second half, making Steenhuis and Tavares the first teammates to each score 50 goals in the same season since brothers Paul (54 goals) and Gary Gait (50) accomplished the feat while playing for Washington in 2002. After Roger Vyse made the score 10-5, Boston scored the last five goals of the quarter to tie the score at 10.

The fourth quarter scoring started quickly, as Steenhuis scored his 51st goal with 19 seconds having passed. After the Blazers recaptured the lead on a Brenden Thenhaus goal at the 2:44 mark, Tavares pulled even with Steenhuis with his 51st goal to tie the game at 12 with 2:41 left to play.

In overtime, Sean Morris sprinted down the right side and made his move towards the goal, diving across the crease and finding the back of the net for the game-winner.

Dawson came into the contest with 69 assists on the season and finished his night with two goals and five assists. His final mark of 74 assists puts him in a first-place tie with Calgary Roughnecks forward Josh Sanderson for the league lead, as well as the highest single season total in league history. Sanderson held the old mark of 71 assists, which he set in 2005 as a member of the Toronto Rock.

Steenhuis and Tavares finish in a first-place tie for the league lead in goals with 51.

Due to the New York Titans' victory over the Minnesota Swarm, the Bandits will enter the playoffs as the #2 seed in the East Division and will host the third-seeded Blazers in a rematch of this contest on Saturday, May 2 at 7:30pm ET.

The two teams both finish with a 10-6 record, but the Bandits own the tiebreaker over the Blazers. The two squads split their head-to-head series and finished with the same divisional record (7-5). As a result, their playoff seedings were determined by the third tiebreaker, which is record versus common opponents played an equal number of times. The only team that Buffalo and Boston each played an equal number of times is the Portland LumberJax. They each played Portland once, as the Bandits won their matchup (14-4 on March 21) while the Blazers lost theirs (9-8 on January 31).

The 18,527 fans in attendance at tonight's contest set a new NLL Attendance record with the 143,651 topping the record set in 2004 by the Colorado Mammoth with 140,942.