Black Bears Back Above .500 with 14-10 Win Against Swarm in a Nearly Empty Arena

The show must go on

Photo Credit: Kyle Hess/Georgia Swarm

In week 6 against the San Diego Seals, the Ottawa Black Bears were held scoreless for over a half and only mustered 5 goals. Last night against the Georgia Swarm (4-2), the Black Bears (3-2) offense nearly tripled that production, getting back above .500 with a 14-10 win in a nearly empty barn.

Bad weather — for Georgia, at least — meant Gas South Arena was run with a skeletal crew, and the fans that braved the elements were simultaneously spectators and DJs. They were treated to stellar eight-point performances from Lyle Thompson (5G, 3A) and Jeff Teat (3G, 5A), but Zach Higgins and the Black Bears defense frustrated the Swarm offense for 60 minutes.

That frustration took a while to show up. The Swarm put up a trio of goals quickly. Swarm head coach Ed Comeau had to challenge the no-goal call on Lyle’s wraparound goal, getting it overturned for the first tally of the night. Lyle followed it up with a transition marker assisted by a long feed from Jordan MacIntosh, then Joey Cupido intercepted an Ottawa pass off a face-off win at mid-floor, burying the ball to put his team up 3-0.

“It was weird,” Black Bears head coach Dan Ladoueceur said about the atmosphere and the effect it may have had early on for his team. “As much as you can go in and say, ‘Hey guys, listen, prepare yourself, smaller crowd, no music,’ it’s just weird when you get out there. I liked it because we could communicate and that kind of stuff, and I think the defense benefited from it, but it was definitely a different environment.”

Larson Sundown snapped the Swarm’s run with a hard five-hole goal. While Bryan Cole retaliated to put the Swarm back up by three, a long shot from Kiel Matisz and jumper with two defenders as a screen from Taggert Clark got the visiting team back within one at the end of the first frame, 4-3.

The Black Bears kept their run going in the second quarter, as Connor Kearnan’s fast break off the bench tied things up, then Jacob Dunbar potted a power play goal for the 5-4 lead. Lyle’s hat trick evened the score at five apiece, and the defenses settled in from there. The Swarm, who benefited from three power plays in the quarter, were unable to get the ball past Higgins and the four defenders in front of him on those man-up opportunities. The half seemed like it would end tied up, but an unfortunate bounce for the Swarm went the Black Bears’ way. Teat got a shot off in transition that Lyle blocked with his right elbow, but it caused the ball to arc over Brett Dobson high in the crease and into the net in the final minute of the half.

Up 6-5, the Black Bears came out with a noticeable edge in the second half, starting to dominate loose balls and getting key shot clock resets as the third quarter stretched on. The game was tied 8-8 within the first five minutes of the frame before Dunbar bookended Sundown’s hat trick to cap the quarter.

Shayne Jackson netted a twister on his wrong side, assisted by rookie Toron Ecclestone for his first pro point in his debut, to open the fourth, but the Black Bears continued to exert their will across the floor. Clark scored his second goal of the night on a similar route with a similar shot, and Kearnan slipped east to west on the crease to score one-on-one. Cole’s hat trick got the Swarm to double digits, but Teat’s hat trick on the subsequent shift was the dagger. Ottawa was content to kill clock the rest of the way for the 14-10 win.

Photo Credit: Kyle Hess/Georgia Swarm

Teat led his club in points, followed by Sundown with 5 (3G, 3A) and Dunbar with 5 (3G, 2A). The six points Sundown scored were double his points total for the entire season, snapping him out of his early funk to start the season.

“Honestly, not anything different,” Sundown said when asked what he did differently last night for his best production of the season. “Maybe the guys just finding me in the good areas, me getting to good spots. We have great feeders on the team, and they found me. I think they have in previous games; I just wasn’t finishing it. I really attribute all that to the guys and the coaching staff. Obviously despite not having the goal production I would like, they haven’t skipped a beat with me, and have been constantly (telling me), ‘Be confident, be the player that you are because you’re great.” Really, I attribute it all to them for always having my back even when the ball wasn’t bouncing my way.”

Higgins made 41 saves on the night for an .804 Sv%, continuing to provide the Black Bears stability as their offense finally tapped into their potential with their highest scoring game of the season so far.

For the Swarm, Lyle led the way in points by a large margin, as Cole’s hat trick put him next in scoring for the team. No other forward besides them and Jackson found the back of the net, a continuation of the Swarm’s struggles of late to get secondary scoring.

“I said to the guys after, there’s no magic formula here or magic pill we can take,” Swarm head coach Ed Comeau said. “It’s continuing to work on things during the week, work on in practice. We talked about one of our focus points is getting shots on net. We had wide open shots where we missed the net. We work hard to get those shots, and then we squander an opportunity — maybe it hits the goalie and goes in, maybe we get a reset and multiple (possession). There was a lot of that. I don’t think it’s any one thing that we’re doing, but we need everyone contributing, and we haven’t gotten that the last couple of games.”

Dobson finished the night with 33 saves for a .702 Sv%. He and the defense have struggled in their last three games, as he has a 13.96 GAA and .710 Sv% in that span.

Photo Credit: Georgia Swarm

The Show Must Go On

An estimated 50 fans braved the bad roads caused by the winter storm that hit Georgia for the weirdest NLL environments I’ve ever seen. Gas South Arena was barely staffed, and all of the typical activations in game — halftime performance, fan interactions during media timeouts — were missing. The DJ and public address announcer weren’t able to make it to the arena, with Swarm Vice President of Business Operations Matt Ritzer adding to his resume by announcing the Swarm lineup pregame.

The fans provided the soundtrack and atmosphere, singing the chorus to “Chelsea Dagger” after every Swarm goal and telling the Black Bears players to take a seat when they earned a penalty.

“Me and Teater were talking (pregame) it was kind of like a COVID game,” Sundown remarked. “It was weird, but honestly, so awesome hearing all of the chatter that goes on on the floor. I’m someone that loves being involved in that game atmosphere. It was really cool to see the select few fans that were out there tonight. Appreciate them for braving the elements.”

The lack of music meant you could hear the teams communicating on the floor and on the bench, with choice words in particular coming from the Black Bears side of things, although Ladouceur felt he policed his language well enough.

“I thought I was pretty good,” he joked postgame. “I made a conscious effort to be pretty good. There were a couple of missed calls that I didn’t like, but I thought for the most part I was pretty good.” After a quick discussion of his bench chirping Mike Manley for what they perceived as a flop in the second quarter and the no-call on a similar hit on Kearnan later in the frame, he remarked on how the refs told both teams this game would be atypical. “They (the referees) came to us early, too, and said, ‘This is a different game.’ The shot clock operator was brand new. Even the reviews, the different angles and that kind of stuff, we knew it was going to be a challenge. I thought they did a great job.”

Persevering despite the bizarre circumstances is just another day in the office for National Lacrosse League coaches and players. Once the first whistle goes, their attention is directed towards the game and trying to beat their opponent.

“Honestly, once the game starts, most of the players will tell you we don’t even know that they play music during the game,” Comeau said. “The one difference was hearing what was being said on the floor and being able to yell things from the bench, which is pretty unique.”

Dobson and the Swarm defense were noticeably louder than Higgins and the Black Bears defense, but the coaching staffs were the inverse, with Ladouceur and his assistants much more vocal during the game than the Swarm’s coaching staff.

“We don’t usually do a lot of yelling from the bench cause they can’t hear it on the floor,” Comeau remarked. “It was a little different for us. It was more like a summer-type game. We sniffed out a couple plays we yelled out that we knew were coming.”

That communication on the floor was a highlight of the night and led to the success the Black Bears enjoyed in the game. But for Ladouceur, it was also a highlight of how his group has grown this season and become one of the better defensive units in the NLL.

“When they (the Swarm) were on D,” Ladouceur said, “I could hear them calling ‘Fire,’ calling the open guy, and we were obviously doing the same, because we did a good job closing gaps on Lyle — and it’s Lyle Thompson, he’s still going to get his looks. I thought we did a good job on that, closing gaps on Jackson so he couldn’t feed. That’s what we wanted to do. And I think we had the communication to make sure we knew — and the other part is this unit’s growing together and they’re starting to trust each other. They’re not sliding when they don’t need to; they’re not hedging when they don’t need to. I think that’s a part of it, as well.”

Photo Credit: Kyle Hess/Georgia Swarm