Phil Matusz is the strength and conditioning coach at Villanova University. He won a 2009 National Championship as a football player there and continues to work with the lacrosse team as well as baseball, volleyball, softball and women’s soccer teams. Recently, Coach Matusz administered a strongman competition pitting the baseball team against the lax squad. In the lacrosse world there is an unspoken agreement that we, lacrosse players, are not only better looking than baseball players, but are also wayyy better athletes. We had Coach give us the run-down on the competitive events and who ended up winning.
Coach Matusz:
The strongman was based off five Drills – Each Drill is worth one point. We had both teams divide themselves into three smaller groups. The first three events were done at once. Three stations, each manned by a member of the Strength and Conditioning staff. For these stations one team had to win two out of three. After you completed one station, your team rotated to the next station and then to the final station.
After the first three stations finished, the score was Lacrosse 2 – Baseball 1
The fourth event was team tug of war. Best 2 out of 3.
1st round – entire team (30 vs 30)
2nd round – Best 10 vs 10
3rd round – Best 5 vs 5
Going into the last round the score was Lacrosse 2 – Baseball 2
The last event was Tire Tug of War
Seven rounds – Best 4 out of 7 wins the point.
As a Strength Staff we sat down and decided the match ups to make them as even as possible.
Each team had one player. The drill started at the 50 yard line, right on the “V”. The objective: to get your opponent across your 45 yard line. Going into the final match up the score was dead even and the last tire tug of war would decide which team would win or lose.
The last round was a true battle between two great athletes, the winning team ended up being Men’s Lacrosse. The competition was so close it could have gone to either team.
We always do our strongman training – it’s another way to train and it makes our guys compete. We put them in game-like situations and see how they respond when they are mentally and physically fatigued. We always do strongman inter-squad to bring more excitement and competitiveness, so I decided to have these two teams go head to head. It was really a great ending to finish up our off-season training for both programs. We will continue to do this from year to year. Each team did a phenomenal job and I’m excited to see them compete this season.
