New York Riptide falls to 0-4

The New York Riptide and Rochester Knighthawks both entered the National Lacrosse League as expansion teams prior to the 2019-20 campaign. The former was expected to take a considerable leap forward this season, while the latter would have probably considered a .500 record a success.

Instead, the complete opposite is happening.

The Riptide fell to a 0-4 after a disappointing 11-8 home loss Sunday afternoon to Rochester, which is surprisingly the only undefeated team in the NLL at 5-0. Heading into this season, the Knighthawks were 6-24 all-time, including a 1-9 mark to end last season, while the Riptide posted a similar 7-24 mark while splitting their final eight games in competitive fashion.

Connor Fields had a natural hat trick during the decisive second period and scored four times overall and Holden Cattoni and Ryan Smith each had two goals and two assists to lead Rochester.

Callum Crawford had three goals and two assists and Lars Sundown had his third straight two-goal game for New York, which is also 0-4 at Nassau Coliseum. Jeff Teat added five assists and Steve Orleman had a strong 40 saves.

With the game tied at 2, the Riptide suddenly found itself in penalty trouble in the second quarter and Rochester took full advantage. Cattoni’s 5-on-3 goal broke the tie at 6:27 before Fields ripped in three straight in just over five minutes, with two of them coming with the man-advantage.

There were a combined 40 penalty minutes in the game. Rochester went 4-for-10 on the power play with two shorthanded goals and the Riptide went 2-for-7 with a shortie.

“There was no flow to that game and I don’t know that the game was overly out of control or overly physical,” Riptide coach Dan Ladouceur said. “I think there were some calls that could’ve been left out there. But when you have that broken flow, it’s really tough to get it back.”

Sundown’s second goal of the game late in the first half gave the Riptide some life and the Riptide had 16 shots on goal in the third quarter, but only two of them beat Knighthawks goalie Rylan Hartley. Rochester had three goals to carry a 9-5 lead into the fourth.

“We had some great opportunities,” Ladouceur said. “Some guys were wide open in the middle of the floor. We suffered from some dropped balls and we suffered from not seeing those guys in the middle of the floor at times and then when we had A-1 shot opportunities, Hartley came up with the save or we had just poor shot selection.”

Crawford scored twice in the opening minute of the fourth to cut the deficit to two, but Smith notched his second goal of the game 73 seconds into the quarter to immediately eliminate the momentum. Connor Kearnan’s second goal with just over a minute left capped the scoring.

“That’s lacrosse,” Crawford said. “We continued to get good looks, just too little too late. It’s frustrating but I don’t think much needs to change.”

The Riptide visit Albany this Saturday before returning home to face Buffalo on Hometown Heroes Night on Jan. 28.