Lacrosse Goalies Throwing and Making Saves With Both Hands. When? Where?

Warning: The topics discussed in this post may cause you to think a bit. I'm all for talking about new topics and this is one of them. You might not agree with it, but it brings it up for discussion. If you've got a thought on this please comment so we can discuss.


Question: This lacrosse parent writes to tell me that his son is ambidextrous (can play with both hands) and wonders when the best time to switch hands in the cage would be. As you'll see from my response I feel that being able to play with both hands is a huge advantage especially when throwing and clearing. It is also an advantage when used as a surprise tactic when making saves (although this is a VERY advanced tactic) I'd mess around with this in practice before trying it in games.

Answer:

Andy I think that the most advantageous use of the other hand is when it is a surprise. This would happen:

1) When the offensive player is in a tight dodging situation (roll dodge) and shoots on the goalie thinking that the goalie is holding the stick in a certain hand.

2) When the player is mid shot from outside.

I've messed around with both, and while I feel it could be a tactic used by good goalies it needs to be tried in practice first. When I get shot on from the outside I will lower my stance which leaves a lot of net exposed up top. And while the shooter is winding up I will switch hands. The shooter (usually) is aiming off-stick high and is committed to that space while he is winding up. A shooter can't always adjust in mid shot so you tend to get a couple good saves out of this.

You are weighing your goalies ability to make the save to the off stick side versus switching hands and catching it (now) on the stick side. I think the move has merit at certain levels of the game. The goalie still needs to be in a ready position after the switch is made and before the shot is released. It wouldn't be good to be switching hands while the ball is in flight.

It's great your son is ambidextrous. Huge advantage really. Especially when he is throwing and clearing the ball up field. He would use the outside hand while being chased by an attacker. So if he's going up the left side of the field with an attacker on his right he'd be using his left hand no matter where he throws.

Let me know how that works for him or if you need clarification. Where does your son play?

Jonathan -

Forget Your Stick to Make More Saves!

I started messing around with this idea a couple of years ago with great success so give it a try and see how it helps your game. Email me at jone94@shaw.ca and tell me how it works for you.

No stick, More saves.

In business, as in sports, I tend to look outside my industry for inspiration rather than in it. And when I look outside in business I tend to look for good marketers and salespeople. Because these are the skills that you can apply to any business to make it successful.

So in sports I tend to look at other great athletes, no matter what the sport, and try and bring traits and talents that would make a better goalie.

You'll find me talking a lot about hockey goalies and baseball players, and football players and today is no different. You see, I think the lacrosse goalie is a little screwed up when it comes to stopping a ball. (Yes, I really did say screwed up.)

It seems to me that the lacrosse goalie is confused in some ways. If you look at every other goalie position in sports you'll notice that the goalie never makes a save reaching across his or her body to make a save.

Only in soccer and hand ball will a goalie try to do that and they will only do it when they have enough time to react with both hands. If the shot is too fast, or too close, they will reach out a hand, or stick out a leg to make a save.

In hockey a goalie has a blocker on one hand, and catcher on the other. NEVER does a goalie reach across his body to make a save. If the puck goes to the blocker side the goalie will deflect it away. If it goes to the catching glove the goalie will try and catch it. (Even when the puck is shot from too close to the catching glove the goalie will use it as a deflection device and not try to catch it.)

But for some reason in lacrosse we feel that we should try to catch every ball. We're taught this. And then we don't wear enough equipment to make that happen. (More on that in another article.) Why on earth are we taught to bring our stick across our body, to make a save?

They don't do it in hockey: If a puck goes to their off stick hip they don't try and bring their stick there they just stick out their catching glove. If the shot goes to their off-stick low side they stick out a leg. The only time they bring the stick hand aross their body is when they have time and room to react and that's usually when the puck is dumped in casually or shot from a great distance.

In soccer, a goalie will bring both hands to the ball if he has plenty of time to react. A soccer ball doesn't travel nearly as fast as a lacrosse ball, on average, and when it does come fast and from short distances the goalie will throw out the same side hand or leg to make the save.

In field hockey, the goalie is loaded with equipment so that they can react to the ball no matter where it goes. If it's down low they will stick out a padded leg to make the save. If it's high they will throw out a blocker to make the save. And then they will whack the ball out of the area with their stick hand, or kick it.

The challenge we have as lacrosse goalies is that we must be able to pass the ball and run out of the cage which makes equipment issues when trying to stop the ball. Also, shooters in the lacrosse have the ability to stop their shot in the middle of their shot unlike other sports where once the ball is on the way it's hard to pull it back and fake out the goalie. Lacrosse is the only sport where a player can throw a fake so hard you actually think the ball has left the stick.

But what I'm focusing on here is stopping the ball.

With most young goalies, if I take the stick out of their hand and give them two baseball catching gloves (one on each hand) they will move better to the ball. When I throw the stick back in their hand the feet freeze up and they end up stabbing at the ball all over the place.

If you take the stick out of your hand and have your coach or friend throw light grounders at you I guarantee you will step easily to the ball. Just like a baseball catcher would step to a wild pitch or a shortstop to a ground ball.

When I find myself giving up shots, especially to the off stick side, if I drop my stick completely or at least focus on moving to the ball hands first and not stick first, I make more saves. It's those times when I find I am trying to catch things with my stick too much that balls go in.

I hope this has given you some food for thought. Focus on moving to the ball without that stick. Hands first. Feet first. I guarantee you'll make more saves, especially in close.

Let me know how this post helped you and email me at jone94@shaw.ca If you've got questions send them along as well and I'll answer them in future posts.

Jonathan -

Percentage Goaltending as I Know It

I've been getting a lot of questions recently about "Percentage Goaltending." Looks like some players have been at some camps and the term has come up.

But nobody can give me a clear answer to what they learned!

So here's my take on what percentage goaltending is. It may not be what you learned at camp. (If it's not just email me at jone4@shaw.ca and tell me what you learned and we'll go from there.)

But here's how I view percentage goaltending. First you need to understand what the shooter sees when he is looking at you.

When a shooter looks at you standing in the cage he has a number of options. He can shoot stick side high. He can shoot between your legs. He can shoot off stick hip. He can shoot off stick high. There any number of places he can shoot the ball and each one of those locations has either a high success rate of going in, or it can be considered a bad shot with a low chance of going in (i.e. A shot to the stick side high is not as good as a shot to the off-stick hip given the situation.)

Let's use this example: Let's picture the goalie for a second standing in the center of the cage and the shooter is standing at 15 yards right up the center of the field.

Most goalies are stronger to shots to their stick side. So most shots taken to the stick side of a goalie have less of a chance to go in than do shots on the off stick side.

But if a goalie stands right in the center of the cage he is leaving a large portion of the cage open to his off-stick side which we already know are tougher to stop.

So if the goalie were to take a six inch step to his/her off-stick side they would be lessening the odds of a ball going in on their off-stick side, and they would not be taking much away from their stick side save because they are already good at making saves to the stick side.

So what we are doing here is increasing our chances on making the save. Or increasing our percentage to make the save. This can also be called "baiting" the shooter. What we are doing, by moving ourselves in the cage is forcing them to shoot to a particular spot. If the goalie moves a bit to their off-stick side the shooter doesn't see as much cage to shoot at. In the shooters mind that doesn't look like a high-perentage shot. The shooter sees more cage on the stick side which looks more appealing but in reality the goalie has a better chance of making that save because it is on the stick side.

Now this is just a straight up example. It works even better when the shooter is shooting from an angle. I'll talk more about that in another post. Until then, let me know if this helps you. Email me at jone94@shaw.ca and we'll talk about it some more.