By: Makenna Cady
ROCHESTER, N.Y. - Blue Cross Arena was full of Knighthawks fans hoping to see an elusive home game win. The Knighthawks faced the Albany FireWolves, eventually pulling off a highly contested win 14-7. The Knighthawks broke the scoring in the fourth quarter wide open, netting six consecutive goals to secure the victory.
Going into the frame, the Knighthawks led the FireWolves 8-5. Thanks to the offensive efforts of forwards Ryan Smith, Ryan Lanchbury, Graydon Hogg and defenseman Jake Piseno, who all scored respectively, the fourth quarter was locked down.
"I mean, we've made a commitment to doing the little things," Smith said. "When we're in lulls or the game's not going our way for a couple minutes in a stretch, we just got to rely on doing all the little things. It's just commitment to making those small things on offense to get the ball moving so we can shoot them."
Smith (four + three) and forward Connor Fields (two + five) led Rochester in points for the night with seven apiece, and four other Knighthawks had a multi-point night as well. Fields also crossed the 80-point mark for the season in this game as he now has 84 points (27 + 57) this season.
Lanchbury stayed hot throughout the night, tallying four assists and two back-to-back goals for six points in response to Albany's two previous goals that opened up the scoring for the fourth quarter.
"I think we understand that, you know, our backs are still a little bit against the wall, even for an easy spot now, you can't lose too many more games," Lanchbury said. "And with the middle of this (the league) being stacked up, you don't really know how many wins you need. So we got to go into every game thinking that we have to win this game, and focusing on what we could have done."
Goalie Rylan Hartley stood on his head for the Knighthawks, shutting out the FireWolves in the first quarter. He went on to make 36 saves on 43 shots on goal for a save percentage of 83.7. None of the goals he gave up came while there was a five-on-five situation on the floor. Hartley had some help as they totaled nine blocks, three of them coming from transition player Ryland Rees.
"When you see guys sell out for each other, and guys are playing for each other and they're playing for what's on the front of their jersey, that is championship caliber teams in my opinion," Hartley said. "That's what wins games, and that's what brings people closer together...that just makes you want to play more."
Rochester struggled on the penalty kill, with four goals allowed on six power plays. The Knighthawks had trouble with jamming up the sticks of the opposition and forcing Albany's power play unit out of the middle of the field. The Knighthawks power play, however, was wildly successful. It produced five goals on eight power plays, with four of those goals all being scored back-to-back.
"If we can step on the floor and see guys and pick up guys by communicating nice, it makes it easy on us," Knighthawks head coach Mike Hasen said when asked what about the urgency seen in Rochester's offense. "Tonight, we did a really good job at that. We have to make sure we continue. I think it's our growth of our team. At this time of the year, we constantly talk about being better than last week."
The Knighthawks kicked off the scoring in the first quarter with 11:11 left in the frame. Forward Curtis Knight snuck a left-handed shot through the five-hole of FireWolves goalie Doug Jamieson. Forward Kyle Waters and transition player Josh Medeiros were credited with assists. Rochester would go on to score two unanswered goals before the end of the frame to give it a 3-0 lead.
Albany would wipe off the zero under their name to start the second quarter thanks to transition player Will Johansen. With 13:48 left in the frame, he buried a right-handed shot that ended Hartley's streak of nine consecutive saves.
The Knighthawks would come back with two straight goals to extend their lead to 5-1. However, the FireWolves would come away with one more goal while on the power play before the end of the first half. Forward Dyson Williams patiently waited in front of the cage and fired a left-handed shot into the top left corner of the net with 28 seconds remaining.
Rochester would open up the third quarter of play with two consecutive goals. Albany refused to go down without a fight, though, scoring three goals, including one on the power play, in a row with less than 10 minutes in the frame to cut the deficit to two goals. Knight would snap the streak with 5:03 left in the frame as he found the bottom left corner of the net on a left-handed shot. Lanchbury was given an assist on the goal. It would be the last goal of the quarter.
The FireWolves would get back to business to start the fourth quarter, scoring two unanswered power play goals with not even 14 minutes left in the game. Those would be the only two goals scored by them in the frame, as Rochester went on to score six unanswered to secure the victory.
With this win, the Knighthawks improve to 6-7 on the season and are currently seventh in the NLL standins. The FireWolves drop to 3-9 on the season, and they now sit in last (14th) place in the NLL.
The Rochester Knighthawks are back in action on the road next Friday versus the Las Vegas Desert Dogs. Face-off is scheduled for 7:30 P.M.
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