Clearing After a Save

Clearing Off A Save: Where to Look First  When you make a save and yell “Clear!”  your defense and your defensive midfielders should break to their respective spots on the field.  I’m not going to get into defensive clears in this book because every team is a little different.  There are some basic rules of thumb that should keep you up to speed no matter what team you play for.  Four Seconds.  And Counting  You have four seconds in the crease once you gain possession of the ball.  That means that if the ball is under your stick the ref is not counting yet.  That doesn’t mean that you can clamp the ball forever.  That is called “Withholding” and would be a change of possession.
Once you have possession of the ball you should start counting to yourself.  I recommend all goalies count allowed until they know just how long four seconds is.  Most young goalies get really excited in the cage and four seconds turns into three seconds.  And sometimes two and a half seconds.  They rush.  But only goalies that are well drilled in four seconds know just how long it really is.  The “Clear” Call  If the ball is under your stick in the crease you may as well yell “Clear” to get everyone up field.  While you get possession your team is well on their way and you may catch the opposing team looking at you pick up the ball while your teammates are running behind them up the field.
One-One Thousand In the first second your first look is going to be right back to where the ball came from.  Usually the main reason that shot was taken was because one of your teammates was beaten and is now behind the ball carrier.  If you make a clean save you can look right back to that middie or defenseman for a quick pass and possibly a fast break.  This is especially true if it is a middie that gets beat Top Center.    Sometimes if a middie is beaten I’ll tell them to start breaking up field right away.  Why?  Because a couple of things will happen:  A:  The shooter shoots and it goes in the cage.  B:  The shooter shoots and it goes wide.  C:  The shooter shoots.  You make the save.  And you pass to the middie that was beaten and he runs up the field for a fast break.  All in all it’s a pretty safe move for that middie to bust up field if he gets beat clean.

Two-One Thousand If you can’t hit that first pass to the middie your second looks are to your secondary midfielders and even to the Defenders on the wing.  The defense is usually forgotten about and an easy pass can be made Side Right or Side Left for an easy clear.

Three-One Thousand Now we’re starting to think of getting out of the crease.  If you have an attack man in your face while you’re trying to clear that means a defender is wide open.  He needs to yell to you and tell you he’s open or else that attack man is going to ride you hard when you run out of the crease.  This can be serious trouble especially if you aren’t a great stick handler.  If there is no one in your face you can step out the side of the crease and set up your clear.

Four-One Thousand You definitely need to be out of the crease by now.  Most refs will call you on the five-count which means they will say, “One, Two, Three, Four, Whistle”

Conclusion:

Clearing the ball is almost as important as saving it in the first place.  If you can’t clear the ball you’re going to be spending a lot of time in your end trying to make saves.  If you can’t clear the ball your team doesn’t even have a chance to score.

If you can clear the ball well then the odds are your team will spend more time on offense.  Your defenders will be rested when the ball does come down on your end of the field.  And the offensive players on the other team will feel rushed because they FINALLY have the ball and need to score.

Summary:

•    You’ve got four seconds in the crease to clear the ball once you have possession.
•    In the first second look right back to where the shot came from for a quick outlet pass.
•    In the second second look to your other midfielders and start to look at your defenders on the wings.
•    In the third second you want to see if you have an attack man on you and look to dump it to the open defender.
•    In the fourth second look to get out of the back of the crease away from trouble.
•    Practice counting “one-one thousand, two-one thousand, three-one thousand, four-one thousand, pass” to know just how long it takes to clear the ball out of the crease.

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