The best word I can put together to describe Tehoka Nanticoke’s Game 1 performance is the culmination. The rookie forward is not anywhere close to the end of his lacrosse journey, but the journey to last night, the journey to leading the team he grow up rooting for to a 15-14 home win in a championship series game with 5 goals and 2 assists, through all the trials and tribulations to get there, was complete. It’s not that he finished a marathon after years of training; he finished his first of many and is just getting started.

What I grew up picturing in the back yard https://t.co/CqXS1vVutN

— TN1 (@Tehoka1) June 5, 2022

Tehoka’s Journey

The 24 year old Nanticoke’s lacrosse upbringing is very similar to that of many children that grow up in Six Nations: learning the game from his older relatives from the time he could walk and playing in Six Nations youth lacrosse leagues. But one big difference was that he was fortunate enough to be a ball boy for the Bandits as a kid (around the same time as Connor Fields too). In high school, he was recruited to play at IMG in Florida a couple of viral goals led him to lots of eyes on him in both the Canadian and American lacrosse scenes, committing to Albany for college after being a top recruit in the Class of 2017. During summers, he played Junior A for the Six Nations Arrows as early as age 15, played in the 2018 Field Lacrosse World Championships and 2019 Box Lacrosse World Championships while still in college, and was in the conversation for the top of the 2021 NLL draft as early back as 2018.

Nanticoke’s time in Albany was where he had a lot of tough times, as he skipped the fall semester of his sophomore year for personal reasons, faced a brief suspension before the start of the 2019 season after tagging a stick stringing company in an Instagram post, and then after the Great Danes returned to the field in 2021 post-COVID, Nanticoke was dismissed from the Albany program for “internal team issues”, which Nanticoke described has “what is best for me personally and for the future of this team”. A couple month’s later, he went undrafted in the PLL College Draft after prolific on-field results at Albany.

As this was going down, the stars were starting to align for a different path for Nanticoke. During the 2020 NLL Draft, the Knighthawks acquired Matt Gilray from the Bandits in exchange for a 2020 second round pick, a 2021 first round pick, and a 2023 second round pick. After the NLL had to make the decision to cancel their 2021 season, the league announced that they would use the same draft order as in 2020, during which the Knighthawks had the third pick slot in each round. The Bandits were the 10th slot, but had traded their 2021 first to Philadelphia for Chris Cloutier, so they wouldn’t have chosen until 14th, a pick they acquired from Albany when they were still in New England with the Bandits trading Alex Buque all the way back in 2018. Nanticoke was expected to still remain a first round pick in 2021 going into the draft, and after Panther City selected Jonathan Donville first and Georgia took Ryan Lanchbury second, Nanticoke fell into the hands of Steve Dietrich and John Tavares.

On an alternate timeline, Nanticoke could be playing in Panther City as their franchise cornerstone or Georgia as the heir apparent to Lyle Thompson, but instead he finds himself getting his feet wet in the pro game on the most high-powered offense in the league and living in-market with several members of the offense. He played all 18 games in the regular season and registered 32 goals, third amongst rookies behind Jeff Teat’s 37 and Ryan Smith’s 35, and 19 assists. While somewhat arbitrary, his 6 game winning goals was the most in the NLL.

After a goal and 2 assists through the first three games of the playoffs, Nanticoke showcased his on-ball talents in Game 1 in front of a season-high crowd of 14,274 in Key Bank Center and was able to show the traits that have brought him to this stage: Speed, Strength, Footwork, and phenomenal stick skills on top of all of that.

It was a 5-Goal, 2-Assist night for Tehoka Nanticoke as the Bandits take down the Mammoth 15-14

👇 HIGHLIGHTS 👇 pic.twitter.com/pHwhpoMDmc

— NLL (@NLL) June 5, 2022

The Game

Colorado got the first goal of the game 55 seconds in, but from there, the Bandits controlled the first quarter, as Josh Byrne went airborne to put the Bandits on the board. A Robert Hope holding penalty led to Byrne finding Dhane Smith on a quick stick powerplay goal to give the Bandits the lead. The game would remain 2-1 until the final minute of the quarter where Connor Fields went behind the back to make it 3-1 and then Dhane Smith got his second of the quarter 5 seconds later to make the score 4-1 after 15.

Each team scored in the first three minutes, as Chase Fraser and Connor Robinson exchanged goals, and then about five minutes of gameplay later, the floodgates opened up, as each team scored in each of the 8th (Williams, Nanticoke), 9th (McLaughlin, Smith), and 10th (Nanticoke, Williams) minutes of the quarter. Williams’s goal made it 8-5, which was followed up by to more Mammoth goals in the 11th minute by Eli McLaughlin on the powerplay and Brett McIntyre to bring the score back to 8-7. The Mammoth’s run came to an end with a little bit of luck as the ricochet off the boards from Nanticoke’s wide shot bounced off the back of Dillon Ward and bounced into the net. Connor Robinson added a goal to end the scoring for the first half. 9-8 Bandits.

The Bandits got their three goal lead back as Tehoka Nanticoke scored two more goals to get his total for the game to 5 for the game. Eli McLaughlin scored the next goal about 6 minutes later, only to be countered by a Josh Byrne outside behind-the-back look. While it wasn’t as productive of a third quarter as they had seen in the previous two rounds of the playoffs, the Mammoth were able to finish the third quarter strong with two more goals to bring the game back to 1, courtesy of Brett McIntyre’s third goal of the game and Chris Wardle’s first. McIntyre was playing in only his 6th career game, as he opted to use his COVID season at UMBC before joining the Mammoth at the conclusion of that season, and has now registered 4 goals and 4 assists through 4 games replacing Ryan Lee in the lineup. Lee is still out with injury.

Connor Robinson finished off his own hat trick to get scoring underway, and for the first time since 7:28 into the game, the score was deadlocked. The Mammoth were able to kill off the lone penalty of the fourth quarter, a cross checking call on Warren Jeffrey, but Chris Cloutier soon answered with a dunk shot with the game back at 5-on-5 to give the Bandits the lead once again. Silver Creek graduate Zed Williams continued to add to his spectacular game with the Mammoth’s final two goals to finish with 4 goals and 4 assists, but the Bandits were able to counter after each of his goals to take the lead back. Williams tied the game at 13 with a strong drive to the net and shooting through contact, but Josh Byrne was able to give the Bandits the lead back with 3:24 to go after an outside quick stick off a pass from Nanticoke. Williams got in close again and got another shot past Matt Vinc to once again tie the game with 1:58 left.

On the ensuing faceoff, the Bandits took over possession. Dhane Smith fed a cutting Nanticoke who was denied the sock trick by Dillon Ward. Colorado rebounded and took possession, but Steve Priolo played phenomenal on ball defense to cut off Zed Williams and force a last second outside shot that went wide to force the shot clock violation. Ian MacKay and Nick Weiss both went for the rebound, and MacKay was able to scoop the rebound and catch the Mammoth mid-change, Weiss flew up the floor seeing a breakaway opportunity, got the pass, and beat Dillon Ward over the shoulder. With 51 seconds left on the clock, the Bandits had the lead back.

The Mammoth won the ensuing faceoff and took their timeout. The Mammoth were able to get two good shots off in their possession, one by McIntyre and a rebound opportunity from Connor Robinson, but both shots were turned wide. Matt Spanger picked up the loose ball with 29.8 on the clock and the Bandits immediately called timeout, but the Mammoth were able to get the ball back after forcing Dhane Smith into an 8-second violation. The Mammoth got a quick transition opportunity that was broken after Tyson Gibson was cut off by Ethan O’Connor just strides short of a crease shot, forcing them to reset with the clock continuing to tick down. Connor Robinson was stopped by Matt Vinc with 11 seconds left, Williams picked up the long rebound, fed it back to Robinson, who drew two defenders and flipped the ball to an open Eli McLaughlin on the goal crease, but Matt Vinc was there to make a cross-crease save on the crease dive. The buzzer sounded soon after, and the Bandits were officially one win away from their first title since 2008.

Both teams played well enough that there really aren’t that many adjustments either team will need to make between games that would warrant new keys. If you were busy not on the internet this weekend, you can catch up with my Finals Primer post to see what those original keys were and how the Mammoth reached the finals.

Game 2 will be at Ball Arena on Saturday at 9 PM Eastern on ESPN+ and one of the TSN Networks (Game 1 was on TSN4).

Stat Breakdown

Game 1 Team Stats	Buffalo Bandits	Colorado Mammoth
Goals	15 (51.7%)	14 (48.3%)
Shots On Goal	55 (50.5%) – Vinc 40 saves (.741)	54 (49.5%) – Ward 40 saves (.727)
Total Shot Attempts	73 (49.7%)	74 (50.3%)
Faceoffs	19/33 (57.6%)	14/33 (42.4%)
Loose Balls	77 (51.7%)	62 (48.3%)
Power Play	1/3	1/2

Photo Credit: Bandits.com