THE CANADIAN PRESS
BUFFALO, N.Y. — Mark Steenhuis smashed the single-game National Lacrosse League points record with 17 in Buffalo’s 25-10 trashing of the Toronto Rock on Saturday night, and Bandits coach Darris Kilgour didn’t mind at all that his players mercilessly ran up the score.
"It’s up to them to play," said Kilgour. "We play hard lacrosse and it’s up to the other team to match us. If they don’t feel like doing that, then scores like this happen."
Rock coach Jamie Batley expects a better effort from his team when it faces the Bandits again next Friday in Toronto. The more his players think about what happened in front of a capacity HSBC Arena crowd of 18,690, the angrier they should become.
"That’s their prerogative," Batley said of the Bandits’ refusal to ease up after having the game well in hand. " We believe it’s a round world and one day that will come back to get them.
"But it’s pro sports. We weren’t taking our foot off the gas so they weren’t taking their foot off the gas."
Steenhuis scored four goals and assisted on 13 to smash the previous NLL mark of 15 by Rochester’s John Grant Jr.
"It shows the depth of our team," said the 28-year-old resident of St. Catharines, Ont. "When we put our heads on right and bear down and play our game, we’re tough to beat.
"What you saw was great ball movement. Everyone was shooting the ball really well, picking corners and getting open. When you have a combination of those things, it’s hard to stop us."
Neither Bob Watson nor Mike Attwood could stop Steenhuis and Co.
"It wasn’t pretty," said Watson, who took a permanent seat at the end of Toronto’s bench after being lifted a second time. "They jumped on us early and often.
"We were back on our heels."
Buffalo led 3-0 and 6-3 after one quarter, was up 12-5 at halftime, and was coasting at 19-7 after three quarters.
"This is a game of confidence and our’s went out the window early," said Watson.
Roger Vyse scored six goals and John Tavares four for Buffalo (6-1), while Cory Bomberry got three and Tom Montour, Kevin Dostie and Sean Greenhalgh had two each. Ian Llord and Billy Dee Smith chipped in with one each.
The Rock, who fell to 2-4, got three goals from each of Luke Wiles and Blaine Manning, and Craig Conn, Mark Scherman, Kasey Beirnes and Chris Driscoll got one each.
"Anything that possibly could have gone wrong went wrong," said Manning, who was ejected early in the fourth quarter for instigating a fight with Chris White. "We didn’t help our goalies out at all.
"Everything they shot went in. We didn’t do anything right. We were dropping the ball on offence. We couldn’t make an easy pass or catch. We couldn’t even do that. All around, it was an awful effort."
.Buffalo outshot Toronto 66-45. That meant that the Bandits scored on 37 per cent of their shots.
"We couldn’t alleviate any shots on defence and we couldn’t stop any balls that were at the net," said Batley. "Our back end was absolutely terrible. Twenty-five against is embarrassing. The second half, everything they shot went in. They were really good off ball and we just couldn’t keep up with them."
The defending champions won their previous home game 23-6 over Rochester back on Jan. 16.
"Defences have improved so much over the years that it’s a rare occurence now," Kilgour said of the consecutive offensive explosions at HSBC. "To be able to do it against Rochester and Toronto, our two biggest rivals, is very special."
He’ll be warning his men not to take the Rock lightly now just because of this laugher.
"They’re a very proud team," he said. "This is not going to sit well and they have a week to think about it so I’m expecting a pretty rough game and a lot of intensity (next Friday)."
Steenhuis said he never felt sorry for Attwood as the Bandits poured it on in the fourth quarter.
"If it was the flipside, they wouldn’t have stopped," he said. "They’re all good guys off the floor but when you’re on that floor you keep going, you play your game, and you don’t think about that."
The stocky Ken Montour, who started the game with a league-best 6.67 goals-against average, once again gave the Bandits winning goaltending.
The Rock will need much better goaltending to stand a chance Friday.
"I don’t think this is going to happen again," said Manning. "This was one of those games that’s 1-in-1,000 type of thing.
"We’re going to work hard and I’m sure we’re going to run (at practice) on Wednesday and we’ll come to play Friday night. It’ll be a huge game. We’ve got to get back into the divisional race so I expect a lot closer game and a lot better effort."