Riptide earns first home victory

The New York Riptide dominated well into the second half of Saturday night’s NLL matchup with visiting Albany and built what seemed like an insurmountable 8-goal cushion by the midway mark of the third quarter.

The sizeable margin came in handy when the FireWolves scored seven straight goals to get within one with 3:23 remaining in regulation. That’s when Jeff Teat responded to secure the Riptide’s first home win of the season.

Teat scored his sixth and seventh goals of the game in a span of 22 seconds and New York held on for a 14-12 victory at Nassau Coliseum. Goaltender Steve Orleman made 55 saves, Dan Lomas added a hat trick and Connor Kearnan had six assists as the Riptide defeated Albany for the second time in three weeks.

“It was nice to get one at home,” Riptide head coach Dan Ladouceur said. “It wasn’t textbook or pretty towards the end, but we’ll take it. We had spurts of absolute excellence.”

New York improved to 2-6 and will attempt to string wins together for the first time this season when it travels to face Halifax on Sunday at 1 p.m.

“They’re a great defense. Obviously Dougie [FireWolves goaltender Doug Jamieson] is one of the best in the league, if not the best, and I think sometimes we play with a little more fire and a little more energy, and I think for me personally, just feeding off teammates,” Teat said.

The Riptide chased Jamieson just 1:14 into the third quarter after two quick goals by Larson Sundown and Lomas extended a four-goal halftime lead to 9-3. The advantage swelled to 11-3 thanks to tallies by Kearnan and the first of Jack Kelly’s career.

“It was the second time we chased him,” Ladouceur said of Jamieson, a highly regarded netminder. “We’ve done a nice job of focusing on getting off on the right foot. In general, we’ve been coming out of the gate prepared and executing. Now we have to maintain the leads we build and double down on our principles.”

Albany scored three of the next four goals to close the gap to 12-6 heading into the fourth quarter.

It was 12-7 with less than 10 minutes remaining when things started to get a little too interesting for the Riptide. Connor Kelly scored three times in six minutes and the visitors got within 12-11 with 3:23 to go.

“Fortunately we built ourselves enough of a lead,” Ladouceur said.

Former Riptide Kieran McArdle led the FireWolves with seven points, scoring a pair of goals and assisting on five others.

Jay Thorimbert scooped up 15 loose balls for the Riptide, which hits the road to face a 4-5 Halifax squad to begin a stretch of three straight games away from home. The Thunderbirds were 20-11 winners at Nassau Coliseum back on Dec. 11.

“We have to be firing at both ends and make the most of our scoring opportunities,” Ladouceur said. “Halifax is stacked. But we’re a different team than what they saw last time.”