Coming into the season opener, the Rochester Knighthawks’ head-to-head matchups with the Georgia Swarm have been memorable, but not for good reasons.

They opened up their inaugural season with the Swarm spoiling the festivities at Blue Cross Arena with a 10-1 first half on their way to a 14-4 victory. Last season, the Swarm returned to downtown Rochester and had a 5-1 first quarter en route to a 12-8 victory, which to this day has been the Knighthawks’ only appearance on linear ESPN. And then of course there was the 17-16 overtime thriller last March that saw the Swarm erase a 13-10 third-quarter lead for Rochester to force overtime, with Rylan Hartley playing his final minutes of the season before being concussed.

The Knighthawks were eager to take this litmus test to open up their season head-on, showing how much they’ve grown since that first franchise game and even since last season came to an end in April, led by their new look offense. Seven Knighthawks found the goal column on the way to a 16-11 victory against the Swarm.

It only took 36 seconds for the Knighthawks to find the score sheet, with Holden Cattoni finding a cutting Curtis Knight through the middle of the floor who put the first shot of the night past Craig Wende, who was the Knighthawks’ starting goalie in that inaugural game. Two goals for Cattoni and Austin Hasen’s first career goal helped pace the Knighthawks to a 4-2 lead after the first quarter.

The Swarm responded strongly in the second quarter, announcing their appearance in the game with a bang, including 4 straight goals in about 4 minutes in the middle of the quarter that turned the game from 5-3 Rochester to 7-5 Swarm. After Hasen added his second goal, Teioshontathe McComber scored his first career goal and Andrew Kew added his second of the quarter to make it 9-6 Georgia at the half.

Over the last two seasons, a 7-2 quarter like that would be the beginning of the end of the game for the Knighthawks, but at least during that night, those demons were a thing of the past. Curtis Knight once again broke the quarter scoring with 9:21 left in the third and then a 1 minute 19 second stretch of three more goals courtesy of Matt Gilray, Knight, and Connor Fields. 10-9 Knighthawks after 3.

Fields wasn’t done there, as he completed the natural hat trick to extend the lead to 12-9, and then Thomas Hoggarth scored 28 seconds later to make it 13-9. The Swarm scored two straight to cut the deficit to 2, but Holden Cattoni’s rebound goal with 3:15 to go essentially gave the Knighthawks their first victory of the season with empty net goals from Brad Gillies and Hoggarth to pad the final score to 16-11.

Connor Fields wasted no time getting comfortable in green and white with a 4 goal 7 assist performance to lead the way, Knight and Cattoni had three goals each (3 assists for Knight, 2 for Cattoni). While not registering a goal, Ryan Smith had 5 assists. Defensively, the Knighthawks were able to hold Lyle Thompson to a three-point night, most impressively with only a single goal, forcing 9 turnovers as well. Shayne Jackson had 3 goals and 2 assists to lead the Swarm, while Andrew Kew had 2 goals and 2 assists in his Georgia debut. Rylan Hartley made 46 saves in his return to NLL action.

Opening Knight

The Knighthawks’ home slate kicks off Saturday Night with the Toronto Rock coming to town for a 7:00 start. The Rock had their own massive start to the season, defeating the Vancouver Warriors 19-8 in a game that was over before it even started.

With Toronto being atop the East, this will be a very good litmus test for the Knighthawks to see how they can match up with the top of the league on their home floor.

Keys to Toronto

• Win the first 5 minutes of the first and second half: After hearing about the season-opening win, the fans at Blue Cross Arena will be headed in with anticipatory optimism for the season, but if the Rock are able to start out strong again, that could quickly change the crowd and the tempo of the game.
• Win draws on the wings: Jeremy Thompson led the Swarm to a 23-8 advantage in the faceoff circle in week 1 against Rochester, and it will only get more challenging right away for Tyler Halls and the Knighthawks ball team, with Victor’s own TD Ierlan coming to town with Toronto. Ierlan won 25 of 32 against the Warriors to start his season and dominated the head-to-head matchup with the Knighthawks in 2022. While Ierlan will likely win the majority of clamps on the draws, the Knighthawks wings will need to step up whenever the draws don’t end up as clean wins to even the head-to-head in the possession-gaining battle.

Photo Credit: Rochester Knighthawks/Facebook