I recently heard about a new stick developed by the Gait brothers called the Gait Air.
As per the website:
The most interesting piece that I picked up was where they want the player to carry the ball. As you can see in their Instagram post, they are expecting the ball to be carried in a high sweet spot, above the point where the sidewall breaks up.
They even marketed it in US Lacrosse mag as a draw stick, removing the lower shooting string.
Very interesting.
I received some questions from Katie B the other day.
” Hi, my sister, Elizabeth, plays lacrosse for the Xavier club team and thinks that Stu is a really good coach and had really useful drills and just got the best out of the team. So I was wondering if you have any good drills for a girls high school lacrosse players I would love to learn some new ones for our team since we are often standing around at practice. Also, I would love to hear your thoughts on a stick with mesh over a regular head because I am thinking about getting a new stick head and I want to get my best playing ability out of it. Please just let me know your thoughts. Thank you!”
Katie. Thank you for the questions.
Second question first: depending on your skill level and price point pain, there are so very many options for sticks in the market. I, personally, have settled on a relatively inexpensive stick that I can customize. Earlier in this blogspot, I have a piece on mesh where I suggest that the ECD runner added to almost any stick is a very solid contender for best pocket. It is soft, flexible and receiving. The ball sits nicely in the sweet spot and trims down to stay above the sidewalls as it gets closer to the bottom of the pocket. I do like the StringKing stick, but I worry that it is too light to handle hard play. Still, I have no basis for comparing as I have not put it out regularly yet. The other issue I have with the StringKing is that we can only use their shaft, which ups the cost. I am still not a fan of the partial mesh pocket because I have not yet been able to retool it for the ball to sit in the sweet spot without rolling. Maybe I can figure that out.
The key to any mesh is how the ball sits in the lower part of the stick. If the mesh is just a standard mesh that one would see in the boys’ game, it will take some work to keep the ball from sagging under the sidewalls in the tighter bottom portion of the stick. It can be done, but not every player has a coach or stringer or strings their own sticks to make it work.
So, if you want a mesh, I suggest you find how you can purchase it with the ECD runner or find someone who can install it properly.
As you settle in with your new head, please review my information on stringing, so that you can understand how it works and keep your stick in top form for your games.
As an added note to this, I want to bring up another item that pops up regularly: tightening the pocket. When an official tells a player to tighten the pocket, the first thing a player will do is pull the runner. I have learned that this is the LAST thing we should do. Pulling the runner makes your pocket more shallow and takes out your sweet spot. Think about tightening the leathers first. The leathers will raise up the central pocket and the runner without making your pocket more shallow and compromising your sweet spot.
As for the first question. The biggest problem I see in practices is planted feet. Players throw and catch when they are standing still, planting roots. Whenever you and your team run throwing and catching drills, always try to be moving BOTH when you throw and when you are catching. One of the ways I try this is, instead of a standard single pass warm-up drill, we have a long-short passing drill. The players start wider apart and they make a long throw, then receive it back and throw it when they are approaching their teammate. With this there is less of a probability that they will be doing it standing.
One drill to increase your skill is a box drill. Four players line up in a square, each facing the left shoulder of their teammate about 5 yards apart. The key to this game is that the players cannot rotate their upper torso to allow her better access to making the pass. One player will have the ball and throw it to her teammate to her LEFT. The key is keeping the body still, using the arms in front of the body and being sure the ball arrives at your teammate’s stick. Keep the upper hand elbow higher than normal and pull down with the bottom hand. This teaches the player to use her arms and not her shoulders to make passes. After doing this for a while, turn it around and do it left handed.
The key to any player’s success is their ownership of their stick and their ability to use it. I always encourage players to experiment. Every player must try to work on their non-dominant hand. Every player must learn how to throw from other release points, how to catch tricky passes in close to the body and just out of reach and just how to keep ownership of the ball when she has it.
Katie, thank you for the questions. I hope I answered your questions well enough.
This post is from 2019 and there have been a number of new players in the game. I will update on the new span of mesh pockets (including Brine) in the future. Until them, this is what I know.
Mesh Runners
I have strung a lot of sticks with the East Coast Dye runner. I really like it! When properly installed, it gives the player an extremely tight sweet spot right under the shooting strings. With this mesh runner, the player has a very soft sweet spot with wide weaving that snuggles the ball where it should stay for cradles and shots. At the bottom, there is tighter controlled weaving to keep the ball above the sidewalls.
One thing I will add. If the stick’s runner holes at the top are far apart, stretching the ECD runner top, it can be strung with a very high sweet spot, up into the crown of the stick. When the stick has runner holes that are not very wide, it is harder to set the sweet spot high in the stick, as the mesh stays longer at the top of the stick.
Mesh between the leathers
The issue I had with setting up the sweet spot is that the actual mesh down in the lower pocket of the stick has the same structure as the upper pocket and thus creates a natural low point that is a problem for keeping the ball above the sidewalls. I reworked this area by making the laces connect deeper inside the mesh. Still, I found it hard to set the sweet spot under the shooting strings.
Full Mesh
There are some amazing mesh pockets out now. The key detail that one needs to see is if the mesh has different diamond shapes within the pocket that gives us more control of where the ball sits in the sweet spot. The old full mesh were just mesh used in the men’s game. It did not allow for the ball to sit quietly in the sweet spot It did not stay between the “leathers” area. The newer mesh give us more control. It keeps the ball out of the base of the head and reduces the left/right movement of the ball in the pocket.
There are so many more coming out and it will be exciting how they work.
Yesterday, I was working at my favorite school wall for wall ball, making sure my recent stringing jobs were properly set for play (one is a Christmas present). There was a goal nearby where two girls with four balls were chatting, sharing and shooting. Being a coach with passion, I approached and told them about my passion and asked if I could join them for a few minutes. I found that they are both sophomores at a school with a very solid program.
Because I believe that the stick is the most critical tool in playing, I asked to see their sticks. I traded them with the sticks I had been working on, so that they could keep shooting. As I expected, both sticks had very loose pockets and the shooting strings were too soft, so the ball, when thrown, would have no regular path out of the stick. To one of the girls I suggested she and her father could tighten her strings and I instructed her how. The other had some very creative person rework the shooting strings. So I started at the beginning and set her strings.
All during this I shared with them on new shooting ideas they had not yet tried. They worked on sidearm and 3/4 shots. They practiced while I strung and appeared to pick it up quickly and enjoy the newfound skills. I had the opportunity to use their practice to teach them about how the lower hand and upper hand both have to work together to produce more shot opportunities, how to use them both to “target” their passes and shots. After some questioning, I am confident they will be adding some more skills to their games and have more fun with a game I love.
It was a great time for a coach.
Queen City Girls Lacrosse - from the coach's perspective 