Thursday, October 1, 2026
A scheduling quirk had the New York Riptide playing its second NLL game in three days when it hosted Georgia on Sunday afternoon at Nassau Coliseum.
Coming off back-to-back, hard-fought defeats to Rochester in the opener (14-13 in overtime) and Philadelphia, 14-12, on Friday night, the Riptide welcomed the quick turnaround but failed to take advantage of it.
The Swarm’s Lyle Thompson proved unstoppable, scoring 10 points to lead the visitors to a 14-10 win as it evened its record at 1-1. Thompson registered 5 goals and 5 assists, with one of his helpers coming on Jordan Hall’s second tally of the afternoon early in the third quarter to give Georgia its largest lead at 10-4.
Kieran McArdle (3 goals), Callum Crawford (2) and Tyson Gibson (2) all had six-point games and Jay Thorimbert won 19 of 28 faceoffs for New York, which fell to 0-3. Mike Poulin made 37 saves for the Swarm, which scored at least three times in every quarter.
“We’re 0-3 at this point and we’ve really got to step it up,” McArdle said. “We didn’t give up and showed a fight, but we can’t have those lapses for a whole half or a quarter and expect to come out with a W.”
The Riptide trailed by at least three goals for a third straight game and rallied, only to see its comeback bid fall short despite getting within striking distance in the fourth quarter. It got within 12-10 with 6:11 remaining in regulation when Thorimbert won a draw and set up a McArdle goal.
Shayne Jackson sealed the victory for Georgia with an empty netter with 50.4 seconds remaining.
The Riptide played its second straight game without rookie No. 1-overall pick Jeff Teat, who was placed on the Covid-19 protocol list on Friday afternoon just hours before the game in Philadelphia. No further information was made available on Teat, who had three goals and two assists in his NLL debut Dec. 4.
New York will have nearly three weeks between games. The Riptide is next in action Dec. 31 at Colorado and then heads to Halifax on Jan 8 before returning home to the Coliseum Jan. 15 to take on Panther City.
“It’s a unique league because we don’t have a home center where we can workout every day and practice every day like other sports,” said Crawford, who had a big performance Friday night in Philadelphia with 4 goals and 4 assists as well as 18 shots on goal. “It’s easy to get lost in the holiday season, but we’re paid to do a job and these next few weeks are about grinding to get better every single day,” he added.
At Philadelphia, the Riptide, much like against Rochester in the season opener, had to work from behind most of the game. It battled back from a three-goal deficit late in the third quarter and tied it at 11 heading into the fourth. However, Corey Small’s goal with 8:15 remaining put the Wings ahead to stay.
New York goaltender Steven Orleman (36 saves) was injured and left Friday night’s game with just under 10 minutes to go but was back between the pipes to face Georgia and made 32 stops.
