BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — The reigning NLL Cup champions will begin their 2024 postseason in Banditland next weekend. Buffalo won six of its final seven regular season games and secured the fourth seed in the league playoffs with its most lopsided victory of the year, 14-5 on Saturday night in Vegas.
Bandits star Dhane Smith recorded 12 points (10 assists, two goals) and became the first player in NLL history to notch more than 100 assists in a season. Josh Byrne had three goals and six assists to lift his league-leading point total to 135, one more than his teammate’s tally, and joining Smith as one of three players in league history to reach that mark in a single season. Byrne also scored his 200th career goal, and his season total of 53 goals are the third-most in Bandits history.
Smith’s 102 assists this season exceeded his own record of 96 from a year ago, and he now has the three highest assist seasons on the NLL’s all-time list. Smith’s 137 points in 2016, when he scored a record 72 goals, remain NLL standard, and Byrne’s 135 points matched Smith’s second-best output from his 2022 MVP season.
The Bandits (11-7) will host the Georgia Swarm (10-8) in a quarterfinal playoff at 7 p.m. Saturday at KeyBank Center. Tickets are available here. Georgia won 9-8 in Buffalo on Dec. 29, during the Bandits’ 5-6 start to the season. The winner moves on to the best-of-three semifinal series.
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Jonah Bronstein joined the WIVB squad in 2022 as a digital sports reporter. The Buffalonian has covered the Bills, Sabres, Bandits, Bisons, colleges, high schools and other notable sporting events in Western New York since 2005, for publications including The Associated Press, The Buffalo News, and Niagara Gazette. Read more of his work here.