CORNER OF THE MONTH

The Fake

By Al Mattei

Founder, Top Of The Circle

When West Long Branch Shore Regional (N.J.) played Boonton (N.J.) in the state's Group I championship final in 1998, the heavily favored Blue Devils had all sorts of trouble with a fired-up underdog.

That's when Nancy Williams, the legendary coach who has won not only more scholastic field hockey games than anyone else, had to do some borrowing. She not only had to borrow from her vast repertory of strategies, but one from her home state of New Jersey.

Williams borrowed a technique from Princeton University's top-flight teams of recent vintage, which is not such a bad idea. You see, Princeton head coach Beth Bozman has turned the Tigers program not into one which is respectable, but one which got to within a goal of the national championship in 1998.

Not only has Bozman recruited great talent in her tenure at Princeton, she has managed to get her players to execute on corners. Not only have great shooters like Ann Marie Reich and Amy MacFarlane been in that "striker" position, but there have been other players of the caliber of Melanie Meerschwam who possessed bullet shots from the top of the circle.

There are easy ways to get that secondary striker the ball, which is to simply pass right or left. However, Princeton does something completely different.

Using a stick-stopper (red X), the Tiger corner attack unit will predetermine their opposition's flying tendency and have the stick-stopper make a pass to the wing (purple arrows). The key, however, is the striker.

What she will do is fake a shot while the ball is being passed. It seems like such a simple act, but it works not only for Princeton, it turned into an important corner goal for Shore Regional in their 2-0 championship win over Boonton.

So, it is pretty easy to get your corner attack team to make a fake. The question is, what kind? Many sports -- soccer, basketball -- always tell their players to make their fakes "sharp, quick, and distinct." A field hockey fake on corners, however, should have a different purpose.

The people to be faked are not only the flyer, but the goalkeeper. The fakes should not only be directional (that is, the ball is not going in the direction the corner defense unit expects), but temporal (the ball is not going to arrive when the goalie expects it). In other words, the key to the fake is the change of pace.

Like a baseball pitcher throwing a changeup, the fake for the striker should ideally be somewhat languid (not in slow motion, but one of reasonable speed) so that when the ball is shot at 55 miles an hour towards goal, the slower fake will make that shot look much quicker than it actually is.