After winning in Week 1, the Rochester Knighthawks made it known that they were not the same team that went 4-14 last season.

After their home opener this past weekend, the lacrosse world hears them loud and clear, defeating the favorites in the East 11-7.

Rochester once again got off to a fast start with Connor Fields scoring the first 96 seconds into the game and Thomas Hoggarth responding to Challen Rogers’s game-tying goal a few minutes later with a natural hat trick over 3 minutes and 12 seconds. Fields scored again with 4:51 to go in the quarter and just like that the Knighthawks were up 5-1. After the Rock scored the final two goals of the first quarter, Rochester got the next three in the second on their way to a 9-5 lead after 30 minutes.

The Rock’s prolific defense adjusted entering the second half and gave up their non-empty net goal 2:36 into the third quarter, Fields’s fourth of the game. Toronto had to get five goals back to tie the game at that point, a feat that Rylan Hartley would not let them reach.

Despite two goals from Stephen Keogh in 26 seconds in the third quarter to cut the deficit to three, Hartley stood tall and shut the door the rest of the night. By the time the final whistle blew, with an empty net goal from Mitch Ogilvie to get the final score to 11-7, Hartley had 50 saves, including 4 clean-cut breakaways and multiple odd-man transitions looks for the Rock. Toronto had three powerplays in the fourth quarter, and the Knighthawks killed each of them in front of their young goalie.

For Toronto, Keogh was the only one to solve Keogh more than once with a three-goal effort. Tom Schreiber only got 1 of his 14 shots on goal to find the back of the net. Corey Small, Zach Manns, and Challen Rogers each scored a single goal. Schreiber, Mitch de Snoo, and TD Ierlan had double-digit loose ball totals (11, 11, and 12m respectively), with Ierlan winning 17 of 21 faceoffs, most of which took place in the first half. Nick Rose made 32 saves on 42 shots against.

As for Rochester, Connor Fields had his second straight 4-goal game to start his Knighthawks tenure, adding 3 assists. Thomas Hoggarth added 4 goals of his own, all in the first half. Ryan Smith and Jordan Stouros found the back of the net for the first time this season, with Stouros, the former Bandit, scoring his first career goal.

Next Week

The Knighthawks will travel to Albany on Saturday to take on the FireWolves, who had a bye week this past weekend following their upset win over the Bandits in week one. Once again, a significant key for the Knighthawks will be to lessen the effect of faceoffs, as Joe Nardella will be favored to win the head-to-head against Tyler Halls this week. Another fast and efficient start on offense will help to remediate that after scoring 9 first-quarter goals over the first two games.

The game is scheduled for 7:00 on the 17th on ESPN+.

Stats Update

This message is found at the top of the NLL website’s stat pages: NLL.com is implementing a new statistics platform and some pages may not currently be fully functional. We appreciate your patience as we work to complete this integration process.

So we will keep waiting and hope to have stats as a present to start January with two more regular season weeks in December

Week 2 Around The League

• Las Vegas made its NLL debut Friday night, traveling to Fort Worth to take on the league’s second-newest team, the Panther City Lacrosse Club. Former Knighthawk John Wagner scored the Desert Dogs’ first franchise goal 18 seconds in. After the game was tied at 7 in the first half, Panther City broke away with a 6-2 third quarter powered by multiple goal quarters from Will Malcom and his Phil Caputo. Landon Kells took over for Joel Watson in the fourth quarter and shut Panther City out, but Panther City walked away with the 13-11 victory.
• In the game of the week. the Saskatchewan Rush once again flew out of the gates with a 6-3 first half that was padded further by a 4-goal run in the third quarter to push the lead to 10-3. Mac O’Keefe scored with 55 seconds left in the quarter foreshadowing what was to come. The Seals’ offense woke up about a goal a minute to erase the deficit and then went up by two in 7 and a half minutes, 12-10. The Rush composed themselves to tie the game at 12, including Robert Church’s goal with 55 seconds left, but it was new Seal Curtis Dickson having the last laugh to give the Seals the 13-12 overtime win, capping off a game-high 4-goal 4 assist performance.
• Calgary’s teal turf made its season debut with the Roughnecks having to control most of the way and defeating the Vancouver Warriors 11-9. New captain, Jesse Kind, led the Roughnecks with 3 goals and 3 assists, while Keegan Bal matched that point total with 4 goals and 2 assists, including his 100th career goal. Both Christian Del Bianco and Steve Fryer made 40 saves

We’ll be back later in the week to preview Bandits v Rock and the week to come in a busy slate in the National Lacrosse League.

Photo Credit: Rochester Knighthawks/Facebook