Virginia Toughens Faceoff Presence with Gaudet
by Jesse Baumgartner | Special to Lacrosse Magazine Online
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As a former Dartmouth football running back, Chad Gaudet has brough an element of toughness to Virginia's faceoff unit. Dom Starsia saw fit to joke with his guys this season -- "Say fellas, are we gonna let a freaking Ivy Leaguer be the toughest guy on our team?" © Kevin P. Tucker |
Wielding a long pole when he approaches the faceoff, you could say Virginia's Chad Gaudet gives the Cavaliers a slightly unique look at the position.
And after helping orchestrate an 18-6 obliteration of Villanova in the first round of the NCAA tournament with a 14-for-17 performance, it's quickly becoming apparent that this oddity has given UVA the edge it so highly sought.
The Cavliers struggled on faceoffs last year (.499 percentage), and they were a rather blatant cause of UVA's demise in the 2008 NCAA semifinals against Syracuse. But with the addition of fifth-year senior and ex-Dartmouth player Gaudet (.559, 165-for-295), they've upped that to .555 this season. What's more, Gaudet has claimed a gaudy 68 percent of his faceoffs in games in which UVA has put up at least 16 goals -- including 21-for-32 in a 16-15 thriller over Johns Hopkins on March 21.
Virginia and Hopkins reconvene Sunday, this time in an NCAA quarterfinal at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis, Md.
"He's made us so much tougher at the faceoff X, which was a problem for us last year," Cavalier coach Dom Starsia said.
Obtaining Gaudet in the first place was a bit of luck for UVA.
He played both football and lacrosse at Dartmouth, and even led the gridiron squad in rushing as a freshman. On the lacrosse field, he took faceoffs sparingly in 2007 (his junior year) as a short stick and won less than 40 percent.
"I just really didn't take many draws. I wasn't very good at it either," Gaudet said. "I played with a long stick in high school, so I was used to doing it that way."
Gaudet planned on sticking to defense his senior year, but team injuries moved him back up to the X, where he became the beneficiary of coaching from Big Green assistant Andy Towers (who played under Starsia at Brown). Gaudet said Towers is "probably the best faceoff guy in the country," and the studious pupil ended the season with a top-20 faceoff percentage.
While playing against UVA that season on its senior night, Gaudet heard about multiple Cavaliers who were entering a one-year graduate program in the McIntire School of Commerce.
Gaudet was graduating Dartmouth, but he had a year of lacrosse eligibility left at another school. An e-mail to Starsia started the process, and when his application to the graduate program was accepted, the Cavaliers had a new addition.
"To be honest," Starsia said, "didn't really know what we were getting."
Fall practice showed the coaches they had a player, but the faceoff issue didn't really surface until Staria saw Gaudet go what he remembers as 10-for-10 on faceoffs in a preseason scrimagge.
With that football background, Gaudet has given the Cavaliers plenty of intensity off the draw. Starsia saw fit to joke with his guys this season -- "Say fellas, are we gonna let a freaking Ivy Leaguer be the toughest guy on our team?"
As for the unique equipment selection, Starsia (who's never had a long pole as his primary faceoff specialist) asked Gaudet about trying a short stick before it became clear he was more comfortable with the other.
"It's my own personal opinion, but I think too much emphasis is put on the actual draw part of the faceoff," Gaudet said.
"I really think it's more of a ground ball situation, and I think just in general I'm more comfortable getting ground balls with a long stick -- you have a lot more range. And it's a lot easier to, if you're not in a great position, you can kind of still make a play on it."
From Starsia's standpoint, he's had to get used to keeping one of his experienced long poles on the bench for faceoffs.
"But we got to put a short stick out there, and it allowed us to kind of get to the offense a little more creatively and a little bit quicker," Starsia said.
"I like the fact that it's created a little uncertainty, a little something more for the other team to have to worry about."
Another unique aspect is that the Cavaliers have long pole (and fellow graduate student) Mike Timms on the wing. Starsia thinks that if you extended the faceoff period by several seconds, his team would have a higher percentage because those long poles are often able to chase down the ball and win it back after a lost faceoff.
The most important part of the arrangement is that it has UVA playing well again at the most important time of the year. And for Gaudet, who said he was willing to even be a practice or scout team player, it's just the continuation of a decision that has reaped benefits for both parties.
"Deep down I was a pretty confident guy," he said. "I had a feeling I'd be able to contribute in some way. I wasn't sure if it would end up being as many as it was this year. But that's just how it's panned out."
