Fresh off a pair of inter-divisional wins this past weekend, the Boston Blazers jumped up four spots, from sixth to second, in this week's Lacrosse-Network.com Experts Poll.

Boston (74 points) moved up after a 16-12 victory at Minnesota and an 11-10 win at Calgary. The latter of the two did more to tip the scales in Boston's favor, as Calgary, now third with 73 points, was (and still is) in first place in the Western Division and had been no worse than second in the Experts Poll each of the last four weeks.

The Blazers' snap rise, the best in the top half of the rankings since Calgary vaulted from eighth to third earlier this season, overshadows eleven words that we've written often in 2009 -- the Buffalo Bandits are the unanimous first-place selection of the experts, for the sixth time in eight polls this season.

The Bandits proved their merit by rallying from an 11-5 halftime deficit at Toronto to beat the Rock, 17-16, in overtime.

At the other end of the spectrum lies the Minnesota Swarm. Fifth a week ago, and perhaps charitably so, the Swarm dropped all the way to tenth place (19 points) this week after losing to Boston and Philadelphia, marking five straight losses after a 2-0 start.

However, the Swarm can consider itself still a step ahead of the other 2-5 teams, Toronto and Rochester. The Rock, as mentioned earlier, fell apart against Buffalo, while the Knighthawks whipped New York. The Experts were split on the Lake Ontario rivals, giving them 14 points each.

Our panel of seven experts includes a wide range of top lacrosse minds, including Outsider's Guide writers, players, and coaches. Scoring is on an 12-11-10-etc. basis, so that the maximum score a team can earn is 84 points and the minimum is seven points.

The complete rankings from this week's Experts Poll, with comments (win-loss record through Sunday is in parentheses):

WEEK EIGHT                                      Pts  Prv
 1. Buffalo Bandits (7-1)                        84    1
    What will they do to reeling Swarm?
 2. Boston Blazers (6-3)                         74    6
    Is this really an expansion team?
 3. Calgary Roughnecks (5-2)                     73    2
    Now is a good time to reverse slide
 4. New York Titans (5-4)                        61    3
    2 home games in 2 days... in 2 states
 5. Portland LumberJax (4-3)                     50    7
    Up two spots... without even playing
 6. Colorado Mammoth (4-4)                       49    4
    Awful weekend, 3 weeks to think about it
 7. San Jose Stealth (3-4)                       48    8
    Eastern road trip (at BOS, at NY)
 8. Philadelphia Wings (3-5)                     32    9
    Western road trip (at EDM, at POR)
 9. Edmonton Rush (3-5)                          28   10
    $1 tickets? Guaranteed not overpriced!
10. Minnesota Swarm (2-5)                        19    5
    Hey, didn't you used to be the West fave?
11. Toronto Rock (2-5)                           14   11
    Good news! No more games vs. BUF...
    Rochester Knighthawks (2-5)                  14   12
    ...but Battle of the Basement awaits (Sat)