With UMBC having won just 25 percent of its faceoffs (11 of 44) this season, the Retrievers are exploring all options to improve their play on draws.
In addition to faceoff specialists Steve Larson, Brett Malamphy and Nathan Klein, Garrett Hasken is getting in the mix and could take some draws, coach Don Zimmerman said Thursday. The team also has opened its competition for wing players.
The weakness was exposed in Saturday's 10-8 loss at then-No. 13 Penn, in which UMBC went 4-for-22.
"I think it was a combination of our faceoff men and our wings getting outplayed," Zimmerman said. "We're not going to single out any one individual. It's a three-on-three game. What we've done this week is we've opened it up to a lot of people who feel they can get in there and help get us the ball, whether it's the guy actually getting down for the faceoff or the wings. We've worked on it a lot in practice. So we have a bunch of different combinations that we can now use, and I think you're going to see an improvement there."
To be fair, Zimmerman never expected the team's faceoff specialists to pick up where Phil Poe left off. Poe's 59.9 faceoff percentage was the 11th-highest mark in Division I last season, and he graduated as the school's all-time leader in faceoff wins (676).
"You don't replace a player like Phil Poe overnight," Zimmerman said. "If you look at the guys we have facing off, Steve Larson is a sophomore, Brett Malamphy is a freshman, Garrett Hasken is a sophomore, and Nathan Klein is a senior who we just asked if he would get in there and try to give us a different look with a long stick facing off. So there's not a whole lot of experience coming back this year. Early in the season, there are going to be some growing pains. But we are making it very competitive, and that's going to help everybody out."