NLL Black Bears debut in Ottawa with impressive win over Rock
Published
Ottawa, ON - The Toronto Rock (0-1) dropped their 2024-25 NLL season opener by a score of 11-5 against the Ottawa Black Bears (1-0) on Friday night at Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa.
The Rock offence was stymied by a red-hot Zach Higgins in the Ottawa net, as the Rock were held without a goal for the first 35-plus minutes of the game.
“We need to be sharper,” Sawyer said after the disappointing loss. “We need to be more resilient. It’s tough to play the game when you’re not putting [goals] on the board yourself, and even though defensively and Nick [Rose] were good, as an offensive group, we have to give them some hope.”
Ottawa was playing their inaugural game, and the local crowd was excited to have lacrosse back in the city. The crowd wasn’t treated to much early, however Jacob Dunbar got the Black Bears on the board and Ottawa scored again to make it 2-0 after one.
The second quarter was a very physical affair that saw multiple loose ball battles in the corners, open-floor collisions and a five-minute major goaltender interference penalty assessed to Rock defender Mitch de Snoo who steamrolled Higgins in the Ottawa cage.
On the ensuing five-minute power play, Ottawa struck twice to extend their lead to four. Toronto was unable to generate any offensive chances as most of their shots in the quarter came from the outside and Higgins stood tall saving every shot he faced in the first half, holding the Rock scoreless heading into halftime with the Black Bears up 4-0.
With Ottawa up 5-0, Latrell Harris decided to get the offence going in transition by knocking down a pass and going the other way and burying a shot past Higgins to get the Rock on the board. Not long after that, while in transition once again, Rock newcomer Brian Cameron scored his first NLL goal after coming over top of a pick set by Tyler Hendrycks to bring Toronto within three, but it wasn’t enough. Ottawa ran off five straight goals to lead 10-2 after three quarters.
The Black Bears were in full control and never looked back. Toronto was able to find some settled offensive success when Tom Schreiber, playing in his 100th NLL game, and Chris Boushy connected on the two-man game before de Snoo found the back of the net to try and close the gap. Late in the game is when Toronto found their east-west ball movement that saw Mark Matthews find Josh Dawick on the far side and ripped a shot for the final goal of the night.
Rock rookie forward, Brian Cameron was fortunate enough to score his first NLL goal and touched on what it meant to him.
“It was great,” Cameron stated. “It was kind of a blank, but you look up and say thank you to everyone that got me this far and a really great moment for me.”
Starting goaltender Nick Rose conceded 10 goals and made 38 saves on the night while Troy Holowchuk played the final four minutes of the game and made one save. On the other end of the floor, Zach Higgins allowed five goals in the contest and stopped 38.
The Rock will host the Albany FireWolves in their home opener on Saturday, December 7 at Paramount Fine Foods Centre in Mississauga at 7pm ET.