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Gear Review: Flight Head by Maverik Lacrosse

Company: Maverik Lacrosse / Product: Flight HeadPrice: $85.00

Maverik Lacrosse sponsors some of the most exciting-to-watch players in the game. Peet Poillon is leading a stellar Denver Outlaws team to a highlight reel 2012 season, Jovan Miller and Billy Bitter have been establishing the new Charlotte Hounds as a force to be reckoned with in the MLL, and Johnny Christmas has been tearing up fields from Orange County to Berlin.

With all of these great players under their label, they must be doing something right as far as heads go. So this week, we took the new Maverik Flight for a test-fly before we GIVE IT AWAY to you. But we won’t give it away until this review hits 1000 views so START LIKING AND SHARING!

Appearance… +7.5 (- 2.5) = 5.0

Overall I like the aesthetic of this head. It looks like the old STX Vector had a love child with the Maverik Spider. It’s sleek with a nice round shape and the sidewalls are nice and open. It’s definitely narrow enough for me to play with as an attackman, although I’m not convinced I’d take this head to game day yet.

I’ve noticed that most Maverik heads have a downward sloping offset, like a diagonal line. You goalies might recognize this type of offset from your STX Eclipse. It both looks and feels different than your standard Warrior/Brine offset, but I guess you’ll have to try for yourself and see what I mean.

Couldn’t fit a shaft in all the way, so it wouldn’t stay on.

Bonus Deduction -2.5: No matter how many of the loose shafts from around my house I tried, not a single one actually fit into the hole all the way. And it’s not by a quarter of an inch like my Evo Pro X6s, it was more like a half to 3/4ths of an inch. I tried Easton shafts, old and new Warrior shafts, aluminum and carbon fiber Epoch shafts, the LAS America shaft by 1 Lacrosse, even the Boom Town Shred Stick. Nada.

See how the end of the shaft hangs over the plastic? Bonus deduction.

Each one of them gets caught on the front of the hole featured in this picture and no matter how hard I slam it on the ground, I’m just digging shaft into the plastic. This is why all my shooting photos feature the head flying towards the camera. Hopefully whoever wins it will have more luck than I did.

Stringing… +5.0

Stringing this head was painful for two reasons, only one of which I can fault Maverik for. If you read the Brine Clutch Superlight review, you’ll know I need a pretty stiff head to string a Pocket34 perfectly. It needs to hold its shape as I apply pressure by stretching the mesh across the top. The Flight is not the right head for my pocket. As you can see from the photo below, before I even pulled down the third diamond (the one that should really hold most of the tension), the head was already warping from the pressure the sidewalls were applying to it.

The head is soft and the East Coast Mesh was too small.

This isn’t totally the head’s fault. I decided to use a dyed piece of East Coast Mesh to string this head. I noticed immediately this piece of mesh had smaller diamonds than I’d ever strung. If you saw the stick I strung for Maverik pro Johnny Christmas, you’ll remember I attached 11 diamonds to the sidewall and it was a grocery sack. I attached 12 diamonds of this East Coast Mesh to the sidewall of the Flight and it still doesn’t seem like enough.

A P34 pocket usually attaches 10 diamonds. I’ve strung East Coast Mesh before and this piece was much smaller than all the others I’ve strung, which was pretty disappointing. I couldn’t have strung a P34 on this head even if I thought it could take the pressure because of this piece of mesh.

Between the lack of stiffness and the tiny mesh, I really couldn’t string the type of pocket I’d bring to the field, so in honor of the stick Mark Matthews strung for me, I did some different things. When I hit the field, it performed well.

Stiffness… +5.0

This is not a stiff head. In fact, it’s a plain flimsy head. I wouldn’t put it on a D-pole, period.

If you strung the right pocket, however, this could be a GREAT pinch and pop stick for you face-off guys who like to push transition hard. The actual sidewall construction seems pretty durable, which I’ll talk about in the next section, so for you groundball hogs and middle-of-the-field types, this head could do you a lot of favors.

This is not a stiff head. It was fun doing the pinch and pop move with it.

Brand new, this thing didn’t fight back at all when I tried to bend it. It seems like it was built for the plunger move for you faceoff guys. I can’t think of another reason it’d be so flexible.

Durability… +7.5

Now despite the fact that it’s very flexible, that doesn’t mean it’s a weak head. A flexible head that won’t break is great for midfielders who eat ground balls for breakfast. I was bending this head all the way down on both sides, doing the pinch and pop move and digging into the ground. No signs of giving way.

Durable and flexible. As long as you’re not a pole, this head will last.

I like the sidewall construction of this head between the walls. You can tell that when you flex this thing all the way to one side, the narrow beams between the walls are engineered for strength as the plastic bends. I would like to see some guys face off with this head and give me some feedback. I think it’d be valuable for finding this head the right role on the field.

Value… +7.5

Priced at an even $85.00, this is well below the average for top of the line heads. That being said, top of the line heads are usually stiffer with a more extreme offset. I think Maverik has priced this head pretty fairly. My concern is that there are stiffer, more offset heads priced around the same range, so I’m having trouble finding that “it” factor that makes it a top seller among heads in this price range.

Priced fairly, but can it compete in this price range?

Overall… +6.2/10

I don’t know that this numeric score does it justice. There are obviously negative things about this head being flexible, but it has its positives too. I have a real hard time even practicing face-off stuff with my heads because it takes a while to get them soft enough to really give when you pinch the ball. Right out of the box, I was having no problem plungering the ball up and out on the way to a make believe fastbreak. Too bad I know 12-year-olds who can beat me on the draw.

As an attackman, yeah, the stiffness is what would keep me away from this head, although I like the shape better than most Maverik heads I’ve used. This head does, however, have an important role on the field.

“I want this head in a ground ball scrum.”

I think this head belongs in the hands of a midfielder who is between the lines a lot. As a coach, I want this head in a ground ball scrum. I want this head in the hands of the guy I trust to clear the ball.

Got some gear you wish we would review? Hit us up and let us know what you think we should review next.