For indoor lacrosse, the transition position is a staple. With the condensed field size and on the fly substitutions, moving from defense to offense happens in seconds. Zach Currier, Challen Rogers, and Jordan MacIntosh are a few names who have dominated in this role in the NLL. As the PLL’s fourth season is beginning to unwind, it seems as if field lacrosse is taking a page out of the indoor game.
In the PLL’s first two seasons it happened rarely, the only example I can think of off the top of my head is Sergio Perkovic for the Redwoods. Fast forward to 2022 and it seems like every team now has a player in a new position, transition. Coaches are taking offensive minded players, some who may have never played a lick of defense in their whole careers, and switching them to defense. The PLL player pool is filled with talented SSDMs, so this isn’t happening due to a lack of availability, coaches are beginning to find an advantage keeping offensive personnel on the defensive end.
With a 52 second shot clock and shortened field, it makes sense that this “transition” role has found its way into field lacrosse. Off of clean saves, goalies usually get the ball out of there stick in a flash in order to push tempo. Most SSDM and long sticks in the PLL are capable of pushing tempo successfully, but what happens when the guy running transition is a three-time All-American who played attack in college? The defense has a whole different kind of threat to honor, often leading to the opposing goalie hitting the turn and rake.
I’m referring to Tre Leclaire above as he is the latest example. The Archers recently started using Leclaire on the defensive side to increase their transition production; it worked in both their favors greatly. I watched Leclaire take a SSDM run, push the tempo off the clear, draw a penalty, then stay on the EMO and sting a corner.
It now seems as if every team is carrying one of these “transition” players on their 19 man rosters weekly. For Chaos it’s Ian Mackay, Chrome it’s Mike Messenger, Whipsnakes it’s Colin Kirst, Redwoods it’s Nakeie Montgomery, and so on. Granted the first three play transition in the NLL, so it makes sense to see them accumulating easily to this role in the PLL. If you look up any of these guys’ college highlights, you won’t see much defense on them. Now they seem to be thriving on that side of the ball, creating fast breaks and numbers advantages.
As far as the actual defense part goes, which I know nothing about, it seems like they do a pretty good job. They’re all first class athletes so they can more than hold their own especially with how strong the rest of the defensive group is surrounding them, they have solid support. This risk is worth coaches taking in order to bolster up the transition game.
Something worth mentioning while I’m letting loose in this Google Doc, the guy in the player pool who Dan Arestia has highlighted is ready to thrive in this role, Reid Bowering. If a team is looking to add a player to run transition, this is the right guy for it.
With “transition” already being taken by indoor lacrosse, I am looking for suggestions for the field game. ODMID? OFFDM? All suggestions are welcome. It will be interesting to see if this turns out to be a fad in the PLL or if we will see the trend continue. For what it’s worth, I believe this is only the beginning.
