Reddit reviews Lacrosse Goaltending II

Hey there buddy. I have been coaching for 8 years and recently spent more focus on goalie coaching to help out our program. I will give a brief overview of some things. If you know a bunch of the theory just skip down to the bottom for some links

First off here is a great book to get you started. The editor needs to be banned for how horrible the layout and language is but there is no denying the plethora of knowledge contained in these pages.

Fitness: The goalie should be your best athlete. Loads of fast twitch muscle fiber makes for quick reactions. However we all know, as coaches, how often things that should be actually become a reality.

Stance: The Goalie should have his stick vertical (or close to) with his arms away from his body and knees bent. here is a goalie in a ready position. In my opinion he is a little low in his stance but I believe he is doing this purposely because of the incoming underhand shot.

Your feet should be pointed towards the shooter, and you should try to be on the appropriate part of your arc to take up as much space from the shooter's angle as possible.

Hands: Like I said they should be off of your body. The top hand should be up by the neck of the stick and the bottom hand should be about forearm length below that. The closer your hands are together, the quicker you can rotate your stick, however, too close together and you will sacrifice the range of your save (harder to reach those balls on pipe).

Saves: There seem to be 2 methodologies to teaching how to save. 1. Attack with your Feet, 2. Attack with your Hands. The reality is you need to do both. You should be stepping, usually at a 45 degree, towards the ball with whichever foot is closer to the shot. Your back foot should follow up bringing you back into a ready stance with your body in front of the ball.

At the same time you should be punching your top hand to the ball. Propelling with both your hands and feet will allow your keeper to cover as much of the cage as possible and being aggressive towards the shot will increase their save %.

Clearing: With any drill you run you can and should often have someone break out as an outlet for the Goalie. This gets the goalie acclimated to automatically looking upfield to start the offense after a save is made.

Drills: Here are a couple links for drills you can run,

From Mind the Crease

From Inside Lacrosse Forums

US Lacrosse Mobile Coach (A great app for all coaches!)