One goal. That’s all that separated the San Diego Seals from a quarterfinal upset of the Buffalo Bandits — the team that went on to win the whole damn thing. A 5-4 loss in the first round of the 2024-25 NLL playoffs doesn’t look pretty on paper, but anyone who watched that game knows the Seals were right there. That stings. It’s supposed to.
The Season in Summary: 9-9 and Scrapping for Everything
San Diego finished 9-9, good enough for the eighth seed out of the East. Not glamorous. Not a headline anyone was writing before the playoffs started. But let’s put that record in context: this is a franchise that’s still in the process of building something from scratch in a market where lacrosse isn’t exactly a household sport. Nine wins in a season where the Bandits and the Rush were playing at a completely different level? That’s not a failure. That’s a foundation.
The Seals aren’t the most talented roster in the league. They’re not supposed to be yet. What they showed this season is that they can compete — really compete — against elite competition on a given night. An 8th seed doesn’t get a 5-4 final against the eventual champions unless they’re doing something right.
That Quarterfinal: So Close It Hurts
Buffalo was the top seed. The Bandits had Dhane Smith setting records — 102 assists, breaking his own mark — and a roster built for exactly this kind of grind-it-out playoff moment. The Seals held them to five goals. Five. In a playoff game against the best team in the NLL. That’s not a number you put up by accident.
A one-goal loss to the eventual champions in round one is the kind of result that defines a franchise’s trajectory. It can break a young team’s spirit or it can become the measuring stick everything else gets held against. San Diego has to decide which version of that story they’re telling going forward. The smart money says this locker room remembers exactly how close they were.
What Works in San Diego
The Seals showed flashes of a defensive identity this season. Holding the Bandits to five goals in a playoff game is the kind of performance that gets coaches’ attention around the league. If San Diego can build a consistent defensive structure around that ceiling, they have something real to work with.
The market is also starting to come around. San Diego is a sports city — it has the appetite for this. Building a fanbase takes time, especially for a sport that doesn’t have decades of roots on the West Coast, but the Seals are in the right city to eventually make noise if they give people something to show up for. A deep playoff run does more for season ticket sales than any marketing campaign ever will.
The Problems That Have to Be Solved
Finishing. Scoring in the playoffs. The Seals put up four goals against Buffalo, and while the defensive effort deserves credit, you’re not advancing in this league at four goals a game. The offensive ceiling needs to rise. Period.
The gap between San Diego and the elite tier — Buffalo, Saskatchewan, Halifax — is real and it’s not closing on its own. The Seals need difference-makers. Whether that comes through the draft, transactions, or development of the pieces already in house, the front office has to be aggressive. Mediocrity is comfortable and it kills franchises quietly. San Diego can’t afford to get comfortable at 9-9.
The Future: Optimism, Not Hype
This isn’t a rebuild piece. San Diego isn’t blowing it up. This is a young franchise that went 9-9, made the playoffs, nearly knocked off the champions, and has a city with real upside if they play their cards right. That’s a program on an upward trajectory, not one treading water.
The 5-4 loss to Buffalo is going to come up every time someone talks about where the Seals are headed. That’s fine. Let it haunt them. Franchises that get haunted by near-misses tend to be the ones that eventually turn them into wins. San Diego’s moment is coming — they just have to be willing to chase it hard enough to actually get there.