Foundation Clinic - Week 3
Coach Shevitz (L) and Coach Page (R) working the goalies through station work.
Today we had a good turnout for Week 3 of the Fall/Winter Foundation Goalie Clinic, and the goalies who trained with us kept up a great pace. Today was a big one, as it was the first filming-session of the 3-month training block, so we had a nearly 1:1 ratio of Coaches:Goalies and our keepers took full advantage!
Today, we had our goalies split into High School and Middle School groups. The session was broken into two "blocks", each consisting of 3 10-minute stations. Halfway through, the HS and MS groups switched, so each goalie hit 6 stations. As all of this was going on, two goalies at a time were pulled from their stations to jump into "the pit" to get filmed on their live shots from our college shooters brought in for the day. To help clarify the layout, we worked off of the following practice plan:
Week 3 Practice Plan
Station 1 (Coaches: Logan Duffie, Elliot Shevitz and Nick Kirk)
Cycle 1 // Butt End Saves // The sticks will be turned upside down, and goalies will get soft-toss shots. With a small amount of stick to make the save with, they are forced to step to the shot and not reach, as well as watch the ball all the way to the stick.
Cycle 2 // Agility // We will have the goalies (assuming physically able) go through a progression of lateral footwork, stick hops, pushups, and bear crawls. Our goalies need to be athletic, and they'll work hard for about 10 minutes here.
Cycle 3 // Short-stick low/bouncers // With goalies taking low shots with an attack stick, they'll be forced to get even lower than they'd need to with a goalie stick. Coming off of the Agility cycle, they'll be pretty tired, and will need to keep their technique while tired, which is a GREAT test and will make normal, fresh saves that much easier.
Station 2 (Coach: Matt Nunziata, Matt O'Neill, Joe Volavka)
Cycle 1 // Off-stick High saves with a SS // This is an important spot to work on, especially as goalies get older and better shooters love to try and blow it by the off-high corner. Many goalies have a looping motion to the off-high spot, or even dip their hands before coming back up. Working with a SS exposes and helps to eliminate this.
Cycle 2 // 4v4 half-court games // Rather than doing stickwork on a wall or with a partner, playing live games works on the stick in a more dynamic environment, while also training their decision making, clearing concepts, athleticism and more. This session with be 4v4 with a goalie hopping in the cage, effectively creating a 4v3. Goalies need to learn to pick up a defender and move it, just like in a clear, where there is always a 7v6 on the clearing side (for guys).
Cycle 3 // 4v4 half-court games // If the 4v3 goes well, we will then use a bucket with no goalie for the goal and play 4v4. This will change the dynamics and provide a new challenge.
Once we ran through these stations, we brought the entire group up with a quick full-field fast break drill to work on our sticks and 1v1 saves. Finally, we had a long-toss accuracy competition with the winner, 2018 Delaware Military Academy's Trent Whitaker, taking home a brand new Cascade helmet for his effort! All in all, it was another great weekend, and goalies are now waiting patiently for their film to be clipped, critiqued, and sent back to them this week! Stay tuned for an upcoming post on the value of film for goalies, and keep in mind, we will be filming again next weekend for any goalies who missed this week!
Go Birds!
DP