Project Pinnale: Scoop

Scoop...there it is. I-I'm sorry - I couldn't help myself.

There is a reason that this category is the second-to-last selection and that reason is that scoops are boring. Do you know who cares about scoops? Defenders. Defensive midfielders. Maybe a FOGO here and there. But the scoring class? We care not for the top of the stick. Picking up a groundball? Gross. We’re here to score goals because goals win games. Get someone else to run around and deliver us our precious pills. Let them eat dirt cakes from the tip of their crude weaponry. 

Of course, I’m joking, but we all know most attackmen are like this. You know, the types that have luxurious hair and winning smiles. Always blessed with some manner of genetic lottery, attackmen are the debutants of the lacrosse world. So, this section will have little value to them. But for everyone else, and attackmen than bother to ride feet first, the scoop is one of the most important aspects of a head’s design. IT’s one of the only parts of the head that doesn’t hold any aesthetic value. No one holds a lacrosse head and goes “Oooh, this scoop angle tho…” I mean, maybe someone does but they’re super weird and probably a stringer that doesn’t play. 

As far as my own preferences go, I like the squared-off scoops of yore. The Brine Edge, the DeBeer/Gait Shockwave - but this style is essentially extinct in today’s marketplace. It’s all about how curved the angle is and how pointy the scoop actually becomes at its apex. Which, again - this aspect is not the sexiest thing to talk about so it’s kind of an afterthought. The only reason it’s not last on my own personal list is that I can string lacrosse sticks. “Stringability” of a head is meaningless when you can slam a pocket into an old Brine M1 with like 6 sidewall holes. Back in my day, we played with racquetball pockets and planted anyone dumb enough to come near the crease. I’m not saying you’re soft, but if you’re more worried about which socks to wear to maximize your swag then your soul is already mine.

Pretty much every scoop now is curved to either a ridiculous or annoying degree, depending upon your temperament. Personally, anything with a shape point at the center is a non-starter. The rounded lip is absolutely not surplus to requirements; it is significant to overall performance. In that regard a lot of modern heads are well-equipped. It’s more about which heads are bad than which heads are good, which is more damning with faint praise than trumpeting a certain head as “the best”.

That being said, there are plenty of heads designed specifically for longpoles that take advantage of an upturned high-angled offset to make groundballs an increment easier. Among them are the Maverik Havok and Tank II, the STX Hammer 900, the ECD DNA, and the Warrior Evo QX-D.

If you’re choosing a lacrosse head by the scoop style and shape then you are spoiled for choice, but that doesn’t mean you should just pick a head and stick with it. Try different options, get someone who knows what they’re doing to string it, and, most importantly, practice those GB’s on your own. Someone needs to get us the ball, might as well be you.