ASU Lacrosse: Catching up with Zack Handy

(Photo: Jodi Vosika/ASU Lacrosse)

The gut-wrenching conclusion to Arizona State’s 2014 season signaled the end for six key seniors, including two All-Americans. On the day it ended, a night when the undefeated Sun Devils fell by the slimmest of margins to a stout Colorado unit, the stark reality of the toll the losses of those seniors and head coach Chris Malone would take finally surfaced and nearly outweighed the loss that was felt on the field.

Zack Handy was on the field that night, but he wasn’t between the lines. A concussion suffered in the previous game forced ASU’s First Team All-American junior face-off specialist out of the MCLA Championship and sent him on mission for vengeance.

“It makes you want to work a lot harder, I’m not gonna lie,” Handy said of his absence from the face-off X in the title game. “Feeling that disappointment of not being able to play in the championship game — it hurt, and all that makes me want to do is become a better player.”

Offseason changes to face-off rules have forced players around the league to adjust, but it’s business as usual for ASU in that aspect of the game. That’s because the rule put in place restricts a player from trapping the ball on the back of his head, a tactic that Handy never employed in his game.

“To be completely honest, I think it helps me out,” he said of the rule change. “The only people that beat me are the ones that can do that and run away with it in the back of their head. Everyone that is a pretty good face-off guy in the MCLA is trying to change their face-off technique and I’m just trying to get better with the one I have right now. If anything it’s a head start for the guys in our face-off program. Everyone else (around the league) is trying to catch up.”

Universally regarded as one of the best face-off specialists in the MCLA, Handy should presumably have a tight grip on the starting job for the Sun Devils. A quick look at the numbers from a year ago—243 wins in 314 draws, good for a 74.5 percent success rate—and it just makes sense that the guy should start.

But these days, the senior spends most of his time at practice closely guiding the underclassmen at his position with the hopes that they’ll in time be capable enough to claim his role. His call to better himself as a player has extended to doing the same for his position-mates.

The two-time All-American seems to have filled the void left by the departure of former ASU assistant coach Ben Vosika. Handy talks highly of the coach that he worked so closely with for three seasons and seems to want to give back to his teammates what Vosika gave to him.

“I feel that it’s my duty since coach Vosika, who has taught me so much over the past three years, unfortunately had to leave,” he explained. “I feel that I need to teach them everything I know before I leave.”

Practice among the group of specialists over the last couple months has consisted of plenty of focused teaching from Handy, as he attempts to grow the young group of four below him on the depth chart.

“I’m just here to teach them. If they somehow supercede me, I’d love it,” he said with a sincere smile. “I’m here for our team. I want our team to be the best. I want our face-off group to be top-tier.”

Those are the words of a difference-maker in the locker room and on the field. Arizona State lost six leaders of that caliber—and several coaches—when they fell in championship game last season.

But difference-makers remain on this Sun Devil roster, the biggest likely being Zack Handy. This time around, he wants to be between the lines the night the season ends.

“I’ve been working a lot with these guys in the fall,” Handy said. “We’re gonna work even harder in the spring and we’re gonna get after it.”

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