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The One Man Goal: Does It Make You A Prodigy?

The lacrosse world was aflutter after seeing a U13 player from Nevada, Christian Marshall, dodge through the entire Connecticut Chargers team down in Baltimore. People have been calling this kid a “lacrosse prodigy”, and the “which ACC school will he choose?” talk has already commenced.

If you haven’t seen the goal yet, you definitely should. It’s Mark Matthews-esque in terms of fluidity and Barry Sanders would be jealous of the moves:

Yeah, that was insanely impressive. So many swim dodges, a one hand face dodge AND a behind the back split dodge… it’s almost too much! But does this one play actually make Marshall the next big thing?

Of course not… It’s just one heck of an impressive goal by a U13 player!

Marshall’s fluid moves with the stick are obviously impressive, and his speed and quickness are undeniable when compared to the other kids on the field. I’m not sure that I could pull off half the moves he did in a game, and I sincerely doubt that I could pull them all off in ONE play!

But as a player gets older, stuff that worked at lower levels doesn’t always work at higher levels, and it’s always been my experience that dodging through the whole team rarely works at the collegiate levels or above.

Now I’m not saying Marshall should have passed the ball here, even if one of the low attackman was pretty wide open for a while. But when you take momentum into account, I’m pretty sure that going to the cage as he did was Marshall’s best option. I can’t dissect the play in any way to truly make it negative. But that alone doesn’t make this kid a prodigy.

The difference between a 13 year old player, and an 18 year old player going off to college is huge. Kids mature, grow and improve, while others can stagnate. Christian Marshall has a huge leg up on a lot of the kids he plays with now, but will he keep that edge? Or will the others in his peer group simply catch up? The decision here is all Marshall’s, and it depends on how hard he works in relation to others.

The potential is there, and his dominance right now is clear, but I’m not ready to call Christian Marshall a lacrosse prodigy just yet! It all goes back to my view on recruiting camps for players that are not yet sophomores in high school… any time before then, and it’s just too early to tell!

Great goal by Christian. Great stick skills and athleticism as well. We wish him all the luck, and hope he keeps working harder and harder… if he does, the sky truly is the limit down the road.