Throwing the Ball for Scores Thinking strategically the goalies job is to, "Get the Ball Back" from the other team and start the break gaining another possession for the offense. Possessions are the vital statistic. They lead to shots, that lead to shots on goal and effective SOG are goals. If you out possess, out shoot, out SOG and out score the other team every game, you go undefeated. To do that you not only have to play great in goal and team defense (winning teams' goalies have save percentages in the 60s% and losing ones in the 40s%) but it is essential that once you get the ball that the team gets the ball into the offensive end. Since most clears are not set clears off a restart (after a foul or out of bounds) but are off of changes in possession without a stoppage in play (save, ground ball, pickoff) then how the ball gets cleared is mostly dependant on goalies throwing and the defensive squad catching. The most effective way to keep possession and get the fast break going is for the goalie to throw to an over-the-shoulder stick position of a breaking player on a banana shaped route (see Figure);
Keeper Responsibility - The keeper must be able to:
Defensive Players' Responsibilities - Defensive players must be able to:
Coaches Responsibilities - At every school I have coached at for the last 10 years we ran a drill with a goalie three defensemen, three defensive middies and three riders (on D3, M1 and M3) where the coach shoots the ball to the keeper, keeper yells 'CLEAR' and the breakout proceeds according to the diagram. The clearing team has to get the ball across midfield in 3-4 passes and then pass it back in 3-4 passes to the coach. Every catch for the defensive team should be over-the-shoulder. Then swap out all the defense and clearing middies and riding players for the next unit and run it again. Swap goalies every five or every one if you like. On our teams if the clearing players did not use over-the-shoulder stick position and catch then that whole unit did 5 pushups - that gets 'em learning. If the goalie throws a flat pass - 5 pushups for that group. There is no reason that a team can't run the breakout with zero turnovers, except if they don't practice it until they are really good at the basic catch, throw, position and timing. So it is a coaches responsibility to practice breakouts assuring that the keeper is comfortable with all his players and getting the over-the-shoulder pass completed every time.to an up field breakout player. Copyright Weston Lacrosse 2010 |
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