John Tavares, leading a balanced Buffalo attack, led the Bandits to a 15-10 victory Saturday night over the Rochester Knighthawks in the Eastern Division Final.

With a trip to the NLL Championship Game on the line, 10,897 Bandits fans came out to HSBC Arena cheer on their team; their reward is a Saturday, 13 May home date against the Western Division champion Colorado Mammoth.

Jason Crosbie, one of six Bandits to score multiple goals, recorded the lone goal in a defensive first quarter, scoring at 11:26.

Buffalo rookie Roger Vyse opened the second quarter scoring, giving the Bandits a 2-0 lead, and Dan Teat made it 3-0 a minute later.

Rochester's Ken Millin finally put an end to the Knighthawks' scoring woes at 7:32 when he found a way to get the ball past Bandits netminder Steve Dietrich. Cory Bomberry traded goals with Knighthawks star John Grant about five minutes later and Teat closed the second quarter scoring, giving the Bandits a 5-2 lead heading to intermission.

Tavares struck first in the third quarter, increasing the Bandits' lead to 6-2. Pat Dutton then scored for the Knighthawks, but Bomberry followed with a goal of his own a few minutes later, restoring the Bandits' four-goal cushion with the score at 7-3.

Steve Toll scored on a rare Rochester breakaway, but Tavares quickly answered that with a goal of his own. Shawn Evans then scored for the Knighthawks, but Vyse countered, putting the Bandits ahead by a score of 9-5.

The Knighthawks opened the final quarter with a goal from Scott Evans, just over a minute after the opening whistle, and after Delby Powless recovered that goal, Millin and Grant scored within thirty seconds of each other for Rochester's only multi-goal run of the night.

This brought the Knighthawks within two, at 10-8, but it wasn't long before Mark Steenhuis and Crosbie brought the Bandits lead back up to four goals.

Shawn Evans scored with four and a half minutes left to play, cutting the Bandits' lead to 12-9, but Buffalo got goals from Steenhuis, Tavares and Billy Dee Smith in a one-minute time span to put the game out of reach.

Grant scored one last goal, with 36 seconds before the final whistle, for the five-goal margin of defeat.

The balanced attack was clearly the key to this victory for the Bandits as eight different players notched goals. Bomberry, with his nine-point game (two goals, seven assists), led their attack. Vyse contributed two goals and four assists, and Delby Powless added a goal and six assists.

Steve Dietrich played his best game of the season between the pipes, facing 56 shots and stopping 46 of them. Twenty-seven of those shots came in the first quarter alone, when he did not allow a single Rochester goal.

Scott Evans led the Knighthawks scoring with a goal and four assists and John Grant added three goals and an assist. Pat O’Toole faced 37 shots in the net for the Knighthawks, but only was able to stop 22 of them.