How To Stop a One on One for the Lacrosse Goalie

How To Stop a One on One
by Jonathan Edwards, www.LacrosseGoaltending.blogspot.com


I had a coach early on in my career give me this great piece of advice. He said, “If anyone on your damned team was good enough they wouldn’t even NEED a goalie!”

If you find yourself up against a one on one, here’s what you should be thinking, “Nine guys on the field screwed up so bad that I’m the only guy left on the field to help out.”

With that being said, you still have a job to do and that is to stop the ball. Here are some things to keep in mind to help make that happen:

1) Believe you can stop the ball. You may hear coaches, parents or other athletes say, “Oh, well, you’re really not supposed to stop those one on ones anyway.” If that was the case, ask them how they’d feel if you just dropped your stick and started to walk out of the cage the next time a one on one came down the field!

They may say that to try and make you feel good but really, you’ve got to believe that you’ve got as great a chance as any to stop that one on one over any other shot you must face in a game.

The greatest goalies in the World all believe that they can stop every shot. It’s in their make up. They are programmed to believe that. So start believing you can stop them too.

2) Practice One On One’s. Many goalies are surprised by one on one’s in games because they don’t practice them in practice. So practice them!

Grab a teammate after practice and work on one on ones. Have your teammate replicate the situations you most see in games. Is it a pass down low to an attackman on the crease? Do you have to move from side to side and then make the save? Do them first in slow motion and know where the shooter is going to shoot. Have the pass go to the attack man (or imagine the pass) and come across with balance and make the save.

3) Move with balance. If you have to move across the crease to make a save it’s important that you do it with balance. Most goalies lunge and step and look like idiots on one on ones. Don’t. Visualize yourself moving into position and having perfect balance on your feet. Move to make the save with balance.

4) Don’t run out at the shooter. Lots of young goalies want to run out and try and deck the shooter with a good check. While this is sometimes recommended often it’s not. So forget running out to deck the guy for now. Here’s why:

When you run out of the cage it is very easy to shoot over you. A simple lob over the goalie and into the cage is an easy score. Usually you don’t get to hit the guy anyway. I understand, if this is the fifth one on one you’ve had in the game you’re pretty frustrated and you just want to hit someone. You'd probably go out there and kick him in the groin if the ref wasn't standing there. That’s not your job. Leave that to your defense and stay in the cage.

In most situations, if you keep your ground and stay balanced and ready for the shot, the shooter will try to take another step and lose his angle. He’s try and do one more fake to try and fake you out. Or he’ll try and make a pass to his open teammate. Any of those things can result in a dropped ball, a shot wide, or a missed pass. So stay home and let that attack man screw things up on his own.

By staying home you let the defense do their job too. As you get better, and the teams you play for get better, you will be playing with better defense. And I want you to create great habits so that when you play at that level you play solid. So you need to remember that in most cases your defense will be sliding to that man on the one on one just trying to lay him out. If you stay in the cage you will make that attack man think for a half second more. Maybe he’ll want to fake you one last time, or pass, or try to get cute with it. And in that half second that you’ve made him wait your defense gets a stick on the ball. Rubs the shooters elbow so the shot goes wide. Or lays that skinny little attack man on his butt. All because you stayed in the cage and played the shot.

5) Keep your feet still while your hands make the save. Here’s a little drill for you…turn and face the cage. (If you don’t have a cage handy go to Home Depot and buy some green painters tape in the paint section and mock up a six by six outline on your bedroom wall. Be sure to take the tape off every couple of days so the paint doesn’t come with it when you take it off.) Ok, so face the cage and get in your stance. This is going to give you an idea of how far you have to move to make a save on a one on one.

Now, your feet can move a little bit. I just don’t want you lunging left and right and getting too far out of position. Now, try and make saves moving your stick to all the spots on the cage. Imagine a shooter has just tried to fake you high to your stick side and is now tucking the ball to your left hip. You’ll have to move your hands to respect that high shot but you need to keep your balance in order to get your hands to your left hip fast enough.

Try this in a number of combinations and you’ll see yourself keeping your balance and making more saves. The more you can get a shooter to try and fake you the more chances you have of him screwing up, and that’s just as good as any save!

6) Know what the shooter is trying to do: Most shooters are taught to fake high, and shoot low. That first high fake is to make you leave your feet. As your momentum goes upward the shooter shoots low because you can’t get there fast enough. Just try to reverse you direction in mid air! So try and keep your feet and move your hands to respect that first fake, but keep your feet so you can explode down low as the shot goes there.

If you can learn what shooters tendencies are you’ll have a better chance of making the save.

6) Bait ‘em: You can always try and give them something to shoot at and then take it away. With less experienced shooters you can try things like looking big in the cage upstairs. Raise your elbows a bit more. Make it look like you are covering a lot of the top of the cage and make them shoot it down low. Now what you are doing, even though you are covering more of the upstairs, is to anticipate that they will go low. When you see the ball releasing low you explode down to try and shut it off. Hockey goalies are the best at this. They give the shooter the five hole between the legs and when the ball goes there they explode down to shut it off.

Baiting can be a bit tough to explain, but the bottom line is that you give the shooter a spot to shoot at, and then you take it away. Try this in practice. Take a half step to your left and give them more on the right side of you to shoot at. Be ready to jump to that right side once the ball is released and shut them down.


7) Visualize: Spend some time every day seeing yourself making those saves one on one. See yourself in a balanced position moving your hands and making the save. You can make incredible improvements just by visualizing yourself being strong in the cage so spend some time, just before you go to bed is best, visualizing yourself playing that one on one perfectly.


This should give you a lot to think about for stopping more one on one’s. Remember, believe that you can stop them all. The best goalies are the one’s who believe they can stop every shot.