Lacrosse can be a tough sport on goalies, that’s beyond debate. TopJLax approached Chris Sanderson at the World Games in Manchester this year following his outstanding performance for Canada in their early victory against the USA, and asked him that age old question: ‘what tips do you have for a goalie?’ Chris lifted his leg to show us a bruise the diameter of a dinner plate on his inner thigh left by a certain Paul Rabil: ‘yeah…find a new position’. To have a pretty hard ball lobbed at you somewhere between 70 and 100 mph, and to do whatever you can to get in the way of it, lets be honest, is nuts, and explains why your goalie is probably the strangest character on your team. But are they just brave or mental meat-heads who are there to take up some of that goal? No. A great goalie can react to make a save at 170 thousandths of a second. That’s about half the time it takes a human to blink. Interested? Read on.
Every lacrosse defence ever implemented has worked on one key principal- the goalie should be able to save a shot from 12 yards or more away from the goal. This means that there is no need for the defence to venture any further out in either a man-to-man or zone defence, as this exposes an obvious dodge option and opens up the crease. It is the team's responsibility to keep a shot far enough away that it is within the goalie's reaction limit, and it is the goalie’s responsibility to ensure his ‘peak reaction time’ is quicker than any shot he faces. Check this- if a 70 mph shot is taken from eight yards away then it will take 233 thousandths of a second to reach the goal. The goalie therefore has 0.233 seconds to move his stick (or body) to block the shot.
There are some interesting points about doing these calculations that some players may never have considered:
Rip or place?
A ball at 30mph (44ft/sec) will take 0.205 seconds to travel 3 yards, therefore giving the keeper 205 thousandths of a second to react. A ball at 100mph will take the same time to cover 10 yards (146.67ft/sec over 30 feet), still giving the keeper 205 thousandths of a second to react. What this means is that there is no need to take a shot at 100mph from 3 yards, as I’m sure your goalies will have yelled at you on numerous occasions in practise- when you are up close it is accuracy, not power that counts. At the same time a goalie must be ready to react as quickly to a well-placed but slower shot on crease as a 10 yard ripper.
When an inexperienced goaltender has a shot placed on him, at best he will blink. At worst he will shut his eyes until it is all over. The average human takes 0.3 seconds to blink. If, say, a shot is taken from 8 yards out at 50 mph it will take 0.327 seconds to arrive at the goal. Therefore if the goalie is accustomed to blinking when a shot is taken, from 8 yards away he will miss any shot taken at faster than 50 mph, and I have seen many an eight-year-old clock faster than 50 mph. Taking into account the varying speed and distance of shots during a game, blinking will mean that a goalie will have his eyes shut on 57% of shots taken at him during his career, and assuming that he is forced to save the ball (as oppose to it hitting his body by accident) that is 57% of goals let in before he has even started to try and save any shots.
For the goalie this means that practising not blinking when a projectile comes at you would increase the save percentage (i.e. having a friend throw a lax ball at your grill whilst you practise keeping your eyes open). Analyse your game, and next time a shot zips top corner, consider how far the guy was from you, and whether you blinked and missed it, or simply misjudged it. Never blinking will, however, make your eyes dryer than the sun, and does mean that next time a squirrel throws a nut at you it might end up blinding one of your eyes, so don’t apply it to all walks of life. As for an attack man, throwing a fake, or an intimidating movement to try and coax a keeper into blinking will increase your chance of scoring by 33% on a one-on-one shot.
As I mentioned earlier, research on lax footage has shown that ‘great’ goalies can save shots on average that take 170 thousandths of a second; half the time it takes for a person to blink. In many cases the keeper has started moving towards the ball after only a third of this time has passed. The goalie has therefore recognised the direction and projection of the ball in one-sixth of the time it takes a human to blink, and it only takes him another 113 thousandths of a second to get there to save it. This gives you some idea of the level it takes to be a successful goalie; a game in the positive (more saves than goals) is an outstanding performance, whereas anything significantly over this means he is probably the primary reason you won the game.
Consider the imaginary 12 yard arch around the goal. With a peak reaction time of 0.170 seconds someone would have to shoot at over 120mph for the goalie not to be able to react to it (not possible when the record fastest shot is clocked at 111mph). Hence with a good goalie, that 12 yard arch is impenetrable. With most hard shots in a decent-level game varying between 80 and 90mph, they would have to be taken at around 7 to 8 yards to be effective (this is where good defence comes into play). Similarly at close range a good goalie would force an attackman to have to shoot harder to beat him, therefore compromising on accuracy and having to increase his wind-up (making the ball easier to follow and easier to defend).
…and the offence
So how do you beat a good or ‘on-form’ goalie that is eating up your teams outside shots so much that the defence are happy to tuck in and let you shoot? This brings me onto my final point- the bouncer; formerly described as the side-arm rippers ugly brother. A shot taken at 85mph to bounce three yards from the goal will drop to around 70mph once it hits the floor (surface depending). Assuming the bounce changes the direction of the ball you are now giving the goalie just 9 feet to react to a 70mph shot (0.087 seconds). Goalies are therefore taught to step towards the side where the low or bounce shot is placed simply to give themselves the best possible chance of getting in the way of it.
So goalies are crazy…but pivotal on the performance of a lacrosse team. The best are the best because they have taken the time and energy to analyze and improve their peak reaction time and therefore their save-performance. They have mad reactions…now don’t get me started on a face-off guy!
-Flowseph
Comments
This article is brilliant. Well played TopJLax.com.
like, no, love physics combined with other ish. excellent work.
"As for an attack man, throwing a fake, or an intimidating movement to try and coax a keeper into blinking will increase your chance of scoring by 33% on a one-on-one shot"
"the bouncer"
Stop giving them tips!
" someone would have to shoot at over 120mph for the goalie not to be able to react to it (not possible when the record fastest shot is clocked at 111mph)"
Not strictly true. According to a friend who played at duke, Danowski shot 120mph in training one time.
Cheers Flowseph for a great article. Now lets get started on the face-off man!
Yes flowseph... Awesome article!!
"Taking into account the varying speed and distance of shots during a game, blinking will mean that a goalie will have his eyes shut on 57% of shots taken at him during his career..."
This makes no sense at all ie nonsense
Why would a Goalie blink as someone is about to shoot at them???
The same goes for opening batsmen at cricket facing 90mph bowlers, it doesn't happen.
apart from that nice article giving goalies some love
"As for an attack man, throwing a fake, or an intimidating movement to try and coax a keeper into blinking will increase your chance of scoring by 33% on a one-on-one shot."
= Gibberish
Fakes are to get the goalie to move one direction then shoot another direction, not to make the Goalie close their eyes.
Out of interest, how do you measure whether the shots the attacker doesn't take (fakes) would go in or not.
thanks for the laugh.
What next? Face-off and your Star sign?
Cancerians make the best FOGOs as they use their claws
Cool brother, I'll elaborate a little further. I just gotta clarify a few assumptions: that a goalie will only face shots between 30 and 110 mph during his career between distances of 3 yards (the crease) and 12 yards (the imaginary zone outside of which a goalie will be able to save the ball). Draw yourself a lil' grid with mph (in multiples of 10) down one side and yards across the top. Divide the yards by the speed and that will give you a grid showing the time it takes a ball to cover the distance. Now colour in every unit that is less than 0.3 (the time it takes someone to blink) and you'll find that 62 of the 108 total cells are coloured...or 57%- therefore of the potential speeds and distances a goalie would encounter in his career, 57% will be faster than his blink time.
Other point you hit the nail on the head, good goalies don't blink when a ball is shot at them (hence they're good goalies), yes similar to cricket players, that is, as they say, le point pour prouver
I'll admit the point on an attacker increasing his chances of hitting the net by 33% was more ambiguous- making the goalie blink raises his reaction time from an average of around 0.170 seconds to over 0.3. This moves the total possible shots un-reacted to (speed by distance) up by 1 third. This is theory remember, and should not be taken too literally- of course the primary objective of a fake is to move the goalie and create space for a shot, not disputed, but a fake at the keepers face or an 'intimidating move' is another attacking option...
and you measure the ''shots the attacker doesn't take (fakes)'' as not going in...because they are not shots...and they don't go in...
Also...the best FOGOS are Pisces...
boom!!! cusefan is no mathfan!
Loving this...a lot!
