Knighthawks Dominate in 16-9 Win Against Swarm
The ancillary benefit of winning draws; a step back
Photo Credit: Kyle Hess/Georgia Swarm
A full 60 minutes of lacrosse across the floor got the Rochester Knighthawks (2-4) back in the win column, as they dominated the Georgia Swarm (4-1) to the tune of 16-9 at Gas South Arena on Saturday night. It was the Knighthawks first win since their season opener on Nov. 30 and snapped their four-game losing skid, simultaneously ruining the Swarm’s perfect start to the 2024-25 NLL season.
“We’re pretty excited, to say the least,” head coach Mike Hasen said. “We’ve been grinding. Our mistakes came back to bite us, and I think we learned a couple lessons along the way to get here. We’ve got a team we believe in, and we have believed in. I know this season’s early. Adding a piece in (Mike) Sisselberger gave us an opportunity to possess the ball, and when we’re able to possess the ball, we’re fresher in the back end, we’re better in the front end, and a complete game here out of our group tonight.”
Things kicked off going the Swarm’s way with Lyle Thompson, wearing a uniform he designed for Native Heritage Night, cracking open the scoring off a screen from distance. But Rochester took control shortly afterwards off a downhill cut from Curtis Knight and a slick bouncer into the farside top corner. They never relinquished command of the game.
Brad Gilles found the back of the net in transition, Kyle Waters stung goalie Brett Dobson’s left arm with a rocket, and Ryan Smith netted a five-hole goal off a pick. After 15 minutes of action, the Knighthawks had a solid 4-1 lead.
Chipping in with a Joey Cupido transition marker, the Swarm cut the differential in half. Rochester put up another pair of goals, one via the power play, before the Swarm did the same. Rookie Graydon Hogg had the final say of the opening half, netting his first professional goal in his debut with a quick five-hole shot on the extra attacker that caught the defense sleeping.
Back from halftime, the Knighthawks built upon their 7-4 lead with their most dominating frame of the game. They doubled up their goal total by netting five goals 5-on-5 and Taylor Jensen taking advantage of a pair of fortunate bounces, cashing in on them in transition. His second tally chased Dobson from the net, and Angus Goodleaf took his place between the pipes for the Swarm. Georgia’s three goals came settled, on the power play, and in transition, but they found themselves doubled up heading into the fourth quarter, down 14-7.
The Knighthawks kept their boots on the Swarm’s neck in the final frame, maintaining pressure as the Swarm tried to manufacture goals on atypical plays. Andrew Kew recorded his second goal of the game, but Ryan Lanchbury’s hat trick and Connor Field’s loose ball effort resulted in his second goal of the night, putting the Knighthawks up by eight. Rookie Kaleb Benedict capped the game’s scoring with his first professional marker, a near-perfect replica of Knight’s goal in the first quarter, same cut and bounce shot. But that would be all the Swarm could muster, and the final buzzer sounded with their perfect season dashed by the Knighthawks by a score of 16-9.
Photo Credit: Kyle Hess/Georgia Swarm
Riley Hutchcraft finished the night with 43 saves for an .827 Sv% and second win of the season.
“He just made save after save,” Hasen said about his netminder’s performance. “The goals they (the Swarm) got were good goals. He’s been playing really great, and he’s given us an opportunity to be great in front of him. Tonight, we were better, and he made those big saves. Another number that I want to highlight is that nine (goals). It’s something that we haven’t been able to get to (holding an opponent to single digits in goals), but we had the confidence that we could if we had everything going, and tonight, we had everything going.”
On the other end of the floor, Lanchbury led the visiting team in points with 9 (3G, 6A) against the club that drafted him, followed by Fields with 8 PTS (2G, 6A).
“The righties, Smitty, Waters, and Knighter, they all do an unbelievable job of getting my hands free,” Lanchbury said about his teammates’ efforts helping lead to his success Saturday night. “Typically, I think defenses look at me as more of a ball-carrier to a feeder, so maybe that’s why they backed off a little bit. It’s happened a little bit this year, and I’m trying to shoot the ball a little more, to be more of a two-way threat, not allow other the teams to sit back. If they want to sit back, I’ll shoot over them. If not, I’d rather feed the ball; it’s what I’m better at…Everyone on offense was doing their job, and it leads to 16 team goals. Everyone chipped in.”
For the Swarm, Kew’s 5 PTS (2G, 3A) were the high mark for the home team, followed by Lyle and Bryan Cole with 3 PTS (2G, 1A) the same way. Dobson earned his first loss of the season, giving up 10 goals on 35 shots on goal in 34:45 min., a 17.27 GAA and .714 Sv%. Goodleaf’s relief appearance wasn’t much better, as he finished the night with a 14.26 GAA and .700 Sv%.
Photo Credit: Georgia Swarm
The Ancillary Benefit of Winning Draws
One of the more notable storylines heading into Saturday’s contest between Rochester and Georgia was the former adding FOGO Mike Sisselberger from the Draft List to the Active Roster.
In their loss in week 5 to the Buffalo Bandits, the Knighthawks were 8-23 at the face-off dot, 41-128 (32.0 FOW%) for the season. Jensen took the lion’s share of those draws, going 33-91 (36.3 FOW%). Rochester’s face-offs were battles of attrition, trying to muck it up and create 50-50 loose ball situations than win the draw cleanly, which wears on a defense. The fourth consecutive loss meant something had to change.
Without any prior box experience, Sisselberger took every single draw for the Knighthawks in his NLL debut and went 20-29 for a nice 69.0 FOW%. The estimated extra 11 possessions they received — one of which the Knighthawks scored on and two of which Sisselberger inadvisedly shot wide and wild — were touched upon postgame by Hasen, Jensen, and Lanchbury, the most noticeable part of the increased face-off wins.
Having a FOGO winning most draws cleanly kept the four other members of the draw team from having to make those face-offs physical, keeping them and the Knighthawks defense fresh for the whole game.
“As we said to our group there, we put them in a tough spot in the early part of the season,” Hasen said, “because while we believe in them, and they’re doing a great job, they’re grinding. They weren’t coming up with it, and they were expelling so much energy chasing a ball on those face-offs that now we have the ability to be fresh. Jensen had a great summer, and he came into camp with a lot of confidence. We asked him to do a role outside of his — he’s got it in his tool box, but it’s outside of his realm. He was able to get back into what he does best, and tonight, he was really good.”
Jensen finished the night with arguably the best game of his pro career so far. He potted two transition tallies, came up with six loose balls, and blocked a shot.
“I don’t want to say I sucked at face-offs, but I’m not really good at it,” Jensen said with a smile postgame. “I just like to get ground balls, and I’ll run, and I’ll try my best. It’s really nice, because I know we got one goal off of the face-off, and also, they have less chances to score when they’re coming down off the face-off. Our defense can kind of sit and relax a little bit, and their defense has to play.”
A fresher defense paired with the Knighthawks defenders playing a noticeably more packed-in system. The stats have them at 16 for the game, but it felt like they had 16 in just the first half, soaking Swarm shots like a sponge soaks up water. Combined with an offense that helped in reverse transition, the Knighthawks spent most of their game 5-on-5 and flexed their settled muscles all game long. Their efforts last night were reminiscent of the defensive style they faced from the Bandits last week. Hasen was asked postgame if that was a correct inference or if that was the Knighthawks playing the style of defense they’ve been wanting to play in the first third of their season.
“I think that’s a little bit of both,” he answered. “That’s something that we’ve been trying to do is try to play more inside out and be in those lanes and get on hands. I’ll take it as a bit of a compliment. The Bandits are the cream of the crop. If outside looking in from 400 feet above, if we’re starting to look like them, I’ll take it as a compliment, because they’re the best, and we’re working, and we’re trying to figure out our stuff, and tonight, we came together.”
Sisselberger’s face-off wins also helped the Rochester forwards get into a groove, as they spent more time on the floor and dialing it in instead of waiting for the defense to get a stop off the draw. Opponents were able to cut Knighthawks’ run attempts by winning draws, but Saturday, it was the Knighthawks preventing the Swarm from stringing goals together, simultaneously creating offensive runs of their own.
“If that’s an extra 10 possessions for us and 10 less for them, when you get down into the third and fourth quarter, that’s huge,” Lanchbury said. “Your defense isn’t as tired, and your offense can get into a real flow. We haven’t had a ton of success to start the year on the offensive side. I think part of it is just ball luck; part of it is we just didn’t ever really get into a flow. I feel like we didn’t have the ball a ton. Siss was unbelievable for us. I think he’s just going to get better and better.”
Photo Credit: Kyle Hess/Georgia Swarm
A Step Back
After a surprising 4-0 start to the season, the Swarm were unable to surpass their best start since 2017 with a fifth win, losing to the Knighthawks for the fifth time in the last six contests.
Their performance started off fine on both ends. The defense and Dobson were solid and playing their usual system; on the other end, Lyle’s opening tally indicated his strong start to the season would continue.
But four Rochester goals in the remainder of the opening stanza quickly erased that good handful of shifts. Communication breakdowns or no communication at all gave Knighthawks forwards plenty of time and room to capitalize on, and with Dobson not having his best performance, it meant an early exit from the contest. Goodleaf’s 25:15 min. weren’t much better, as the defense was still porous and missing assignments.
It’s the kind of defensive performance an offense hopefully balances out by netting plenty of goals, but the Swarm offense was in similar dire straits. Looks were good early on, but Knighthawks defenders soaking shots coupled with a handful of pinged pipes — Kew’s three shots on to start the game all rang iron, but the third one at least was courteous enough to bounce off Hutchcraft’s back on the rebound and into the net — and started to wear on the Swarm forwards, compounding as the game went on. The Swarm finished the first half with just one even strength goal.
“When they start blocking that many shots, it definitely gets into the shooters’ heads,” Swarm head coach Ed Comeau remarked. “Shots that get blocked typically get blocked outside. There’s not too many inside shots that get blocked. We never did what we needed to do to get inside to get those shots. We had a couple of those, and he (Hutchcraft) made good saves; I thought he played well. But if you’re going to flog from the outside against a team that gets in shooting lanes, that’s what you’re going to get.”
Down 12-4 midway through the third quarter, the Swarm were at the throwing-everything-and-the-kitchen sink phase, trying to manufacture looks with atypical plays. In the third quarter, Goodleaf was pulled to give the Swarm a few seconds of 6-on-5 despite no referee arm upright in the air indicating an incoming Rochester penalty; it was unsuccessful. Early in the fourth, the Knighthawks had an offensive possession, but the Swarm only had four defenders out. Their fifth runner was Jackson, who stayed outside the exchange box in the Swarm offensive end in the hope that a solid defensive stop could lead to a cherry-picked solo transition opportunity. Up 14-7 at that point, the Knighthawks were content to leave a defender closer to Jackson while their four forwards played 4-on-4 with the Swarm defenders. Nothing came of that play beyond burning 30 more seconds off the clock.
“Just trying to see if we could fuel something and get something going,” Comeau said about those atypical plays. “‘Manufacturing’ is the right way to say it. We weren’t scoring 5-on-5. We had to try and get some transition-type goals or kind of gadget-type goals. They sniffed out a couple of them. We had a good look on the one, but at the end of the day, when you’re in a situation where you need to do those types of things, it’s typically not a good night for you. You’re trying to make that happen. We haven’t had to do that so far, but tonight we had to. That’s the level we played to tonight, that we got dominated in all facets of the game.”
In a league that just lost a franchise and concentrated its talent pool into the remaining 14 teams, going 5-0 is a tall task for any team. Hell, going 4-0 is certainly something worth celebrating. But tonight’s disappointing loss wasn’t a reminder of how hard getting a fifth consecutive win was; it was a reminder of a lesson the Swarm learned in previous seasons.
“It’s a reminder of when you don’t put the effort out that you need to that that’s the result you get,” Comeau said. “To me, that was kind of the message that we said to the guys that they (the Knighthawks) were going to play desperate, and we need to be at that same level. We weren’t all game. 5-on-5, they beat us 11-4; they almost tripled us. You’re not going to win games with that type of performance defensively and performance offensively. Good lesson for us early in the season, but certainly with our veteran guys, it’s not a lesson that is new to us. We know that situation. So, it’s kind of disappointing how we performed, but we have to own that, and we’ve got to be better next week. As we talked about after, every week is about getting better in this league, and we took a step backwards tonight. We’ve got to find a way to take a giant step forward next week.”