In todays video I disect a great save by Syracuse Women’s Lacrosse Goalie Asa Goldstock. (Boys you can watch this too and learn a ton.)
Asa makes a great save on a shooter coming right at her. No sweep. She then makes the save and grabs the rebound outside the crease (OMG Noooo!).
I love this save because it shows so much in a two second clip. Check it out and be sure to leave a comment below. And by all means share it with a coach, goalie, or parent who needs to see it. Cheers.
Coach
Make The Save – Asa Goldstock of Syracuse Stuffs One On The Crease.
[00:00:00] All right. Hey everybody it’s Coach Edwards here with another make the save video. Hope you’re enjoying these. Listen, for every one of these I post on YouTube, I’m posting about three or four of them inside the lacrosse goalie University University membership site. So if you want more of these, and more of my breakdown on how saves are made, then you’re going to want to join Lacrosse Goalie University and there’ll be a link in the show notes under this video. So check it out and go over there. I’ve got three videos for free first. Not just Make The Save videos but some 2:57 free coaching videos check as well. So head on over to. Just click the link below the video and we’ll head you over there.
A Clean Save On The Doorstep
[00:00:45] So this one this is kind of a cool one. This is Asa Goldstock. Syracuse makes a clean save against a shot from the doorstep and it know a couple of things on the save that I really like. And there’s some advanced things to kind of think about here. First of all, let’s let’s talk about what probably people are worried about, is that she makes a save and ends up outside the crease. You know what? That’s not a problem, and especially when you know she knows, like she’s obviously got a good stick, she’s, she’s aggressive.
[00:01:20] And I like that here because you know as a goalie most people get too worried about leaving the crease. They think that a goalie should never leave the crease.
Get Rid Of Old-School Lacrosse Goalie Thinking
[00:01:30] They might have a coach that told them that you know you shouldn’t be making saves and being out outside the crease. That’s just old school nonsense. Right. When you can be aggressive as a goalie then you’re going to start to cut down angles you’re going to start to take things away from the shooter. You’re going to start to dictate the play and not be dictated by it. And there’s a bunch of things that happened in this one little tiny two second clip that are really interesting to point out so I want to show you this.
When The Shooter Comes Straight At The Goalie It’s An Advantage
[00:01:58] First and foremost let’s we’re going to watch it here. So first and foremost when you get the volume off of here so I don’t scare anybody. This shooter is coming straight pretty much straight down at the goal. This isn’t a sweep. And so what happens is when a shooter is coming straight at a goalie and the shooter is not necessarily all that tall…what happens is, if we draw a line from the top of the cage to the top of the shooters stick, that’s as high as we need to go with our stick to make a save. Now why I’m pointing this out is like let’s say you’re a male goalie watching this and you’ve got a six foot two attack man right on the doorstep. And when they reach their stick up above their head the sticks out like seven and a half feet. Well that then changes how high you need to move your stick if you come out away from the the cage. You need to put your stick higher to make a save and what ends up happening is a lot of goalies get dunked on. Right. So we tend to tell a lot of goalies to stay home.
An Aggressive Lacrosse Goalie Cuts Down The Angle
[00:03:06] And what I mean by that is towards the goal line on in close stuff. But in this case Asa comes out and she’s cutting down the angle. And so now also too for the shooter Asa’s taking advantage of the fact there’s a lot going around all around this shooter sorry. I start talking real fast. Get excited about these things. So. So there’s a there’s a defenseman in her face. There’s another girl over here. There’s another girl over here who’s actually leaving. She’s on the crease but she’s heading left.
[00:03:37] So but what Asa’s taken advantage of here is that the opportunity for this shooter to get the ball off is quickly closing down and so Asia knows that this shooter is not is going to get the ball off really quickly or so she’s coming out aggressive. She knows the shooter can’t basically run around her or sweep on either side of the crease. And this is great because she’s coming out she’s cutting on the angle. And now what happens is this shooter is kind of in panic mode, as most shooters get prior to making it close the cage. There’s more of a panic inside their head to get the ball off. All right. And so Asia takes advantage of that. So here goes right there she goes. Top corner. And now Asia’s momentum because she took a step forward as this shot was being made. Now, take her outside of the crease.
Your Momentum May Take You Outside The Crease
[00:04:35] But what’s cool here is, let me back this up her. Yeah. Boom boom boom boom here all right back it’s a bit. All right so shots off Asia makes the save off-stick high, right. And her momentum takes her up and out of the crease. But here’s the thing, she knows. Before that shots taken. There’s really no, there’s no other white players out in front of her there’s space here where she can she can go now. She is a good stick. She comes down with this and I mean good “stick skills”. She comes down this ball really quickly and exits out to her left and then deeks around as one girl. So boom she makes one little move and then the video kind of cuts out here so we don’t see the rest of it. We’ll see it here. Little low face dodge little duck under on her. She’s around.
Every Save Doesn’t Have To Be Pretty
[00:05:28] So what I want you to take away from this video is, listen. There’s times when it’s good to be aggressive at the shooter. I also like her stance. You know one of the things that I tell a lot of female goalies and I don’t mean to be disrespectful at all is a lot of female goalies that get in the cage. They look pretty in what I mean by that is they stand very stiff and precise. I worked with the goalie a number years ago and, I use this coaching cue with her and she laughed because she was like you know you’re right. She is I am trying to look like I know what I’m doing. And because of that she was very stiff.
A Great Athletic Lacrosse Goalie Save
[00:06:04] And in this video Asa, here is more relaxed she looks more like you know, that a baseball, softball you know shortstop attitude. She got more of a relaxed stance more athletic stance and she’s coming out or see or sticks even low here. You know her stick is almost horizontal to the ground and most people say like oh my god that’s horrible. You know I disagree, because she’s being athletic, and she is allowing her to react to this ball, really really well. Boom! Not super Orthodox but just athletic. Good move. And she comes up with a ball and now she’s clearing it, right. She’s got one girl to basically duck around. And she’s you know she’s going to make good save.
The Wrap Up
[00:06:43] So. All right. I don’t want take too long on these videos. I want to keep it short but that’s a good video. Hope you enjoy it. Now listen. Like I said, this shooter was small. All right. Shorter, so the height of the stick is low. That way when that happens the angle that the ball can take to the upper crossbar is also low. So we can be more aggressive and not be worried about getting shot over like getting dunked over our head. All right or deeked around. And so that’s it for now.
[00:07:14] Coach Edwards I hope you enjoy this Make The Save video. Listen leave me a comment below let me know what you think. Let me know what you tried and let me know is it worked hasn’t worked let’s keep the conversation going. By all means if you want more of these videos check out Lacrosse Goalie University. The link is in the show notes below.
[00:07:30] Talk to you soon. Cheers.
I have heard many coaches tell goalies to “guess high”. In other words on a doorstep shot, assume they are shooting somewhere above shoulders. In this case, goldstock does that and wins. What’s your thinking on that?
I prefer not to use the word “guess”. It makes me think of a soccer goalie on a penalty shot.
But a lacrosse goalie can “play the odds” by understanding the shooter. In the women’s game, because of the flatter pocket, if a shooters hands are close to their body, that shot is probably goin high. There are a number of “tells” a shooter has and spending some time with a short stick can really help a goalie understand what is going on.
I’m not a fan of coaches who tell a goalie to guess. A goalie doesn’t have to guess. A goalie needs to understand and then move appropriately. Guessing high also tends to create a goalie who jumps at the ball. This unweights the goalie and then they can’t move to anything. Especially on a sweep across the cage.
This is a great question Coach. Does that answer it sufficiently?