Unhappy Lacrosse Goalie Needs Some Tips

Question: Hi Jonathan,

My school just started a new lacrosse team at the start of the this season. Only 1 girl has ever played before, and the team has practiced together for about 4 weeks. There was so much interest that Coach decided to make two teams, a varsity and a JV. I offered to play Goalie, because I had never played any kind of goalie before, and it is, after all, pretty fun. While we are playing established Varsity Teams, our girls are pretty athletic.

Anyway, I guess my question is this: as a brand new varsity goalie, with less than 1 week experience before the first game, having never played before, how many should I be expecting to save? In a typical half, I am taking 20-25 shots on goal, and the other team is scoring 16-18 points. Our typical game score is 16-0. Our team doesn't yet have the ability to complete and score. Some of the team members are claiming that the only reason I made varsity is because no one else wanted to play in the goal. When I remind them to stay out of the crease, they give me a lot of attitude. I am trying my best, but the only "goalie drill" we ever do is to line everyone up and have them take shots on me. Am I just a really bad goalie? At first, I really liked it, but now I am very unsure of my decision to play goalie right now, and I wonder if I made a big mistake.

Any advice you give me is highly appreciated,

A brand new, rather unhappy, goalie.

Answer: Hey there Unhappy. I've attached an article that I think may be of help to you.

Couple things:

1) You guys are all learning. No one is in a position to be criticizing anyone else on your team so my first bit of advice is to not enter into any chatter about how poorly anyone else is doing. Especially you. No one else volunteered. If you'd rather play out go for it. Those girls will either be bummed that you decided not to play goal, OR it may be best for everyone.

2) The great thing about playing goal is that your "grade" isn't the one on the scoreboard. That is everyone elses grade. My favorite saying is that "If your team was so good they wouldn't even need a goalie." So for now, just focus on playing and enjoying the challenge of stopping as many balls as you can.

3) As far as expectations on how many shots you should be saving? That's a little premature to do that now. But I understand that you are on a Varsity team and it's tough not to find out what "good" is. For most goalies a save percentage anywhere between 60-70% is excellent. So I'd say you're right on track.

4) Playing lacrosse is a team game. If all those shots are coming from five yards away from the cage, your defense needs to step it up and play better. If you are letting in goals from 20yards away you'd probably agree that you should have those. So within that save percentage there are "good" goals and "bad" goals. You'll know which ones you should be saving as you gain more experience.

Don't get discouraged. It's a useless feeling and not productive at all. Instead, focus on being better every day. And encouraging others. There is a term the Japanese use called "Kaizen" It means constant, and never ending improvement. You can't expect to be world class right away. But after many days of improvement, world class comes quickly.

Stay positive. Stay focused. Remind yourself of why you wanted to play goal and get back to that.

Let me know how you fare and keep me posted on your progress. Enjoy the article.

Jonathan - The Goalie Guru