University of North Carolina Athletics
Keenan's X Factor Play Powers Tar Heels
May 13, 2011 | Men's Lacrosse
May 13, 2011
By Neil Amato
The coaches didn't need a stat sheet to know that R.G. Keenan was dominating the face-off X at several elite lacrosse camps, one devoted solely to face-offs.
Keenan, a freshman FOGO at North Carolina (more on that acronym later), caught the eye of the Tar Heels' Joe Breschi as well as nearly every other college coach. At a specialty camp, he drew the attention of Chris Feifs, then an assistant coach at VMI and now part of the UNC staff.
They saw that he wasn't just winning draws against the best players in the country. He was winning them cleanly, taking the ball himself and starting an immediate fast break. They knew UNC was getting a game-changer on the stat sheet; Keenan, solidly built but with hands quicker than a magician's, has been just that for the Tar Heels.
What has surprised the coaches about Keenan is he has the mental focus to match or exceed his physical skills. A year ago, he was playing in the Maryland private-school league, the MIAA; now he's in the NCAA, and the switch in level hasn't fazed him one bit.
"He's never rattled," Breschi said. "You never look at him and think, `Is he confident? Has he lost the edge?' He just grinds it out."
Keenan's success rate as a freshman is a UNC record. He ranks first nationally among freshman in face-off percentage, 10th overall. In lacrosse, with a face-off following every goal, Keenan's 61.1 percent success rate can put the Tar Heels in make-it-take-it mode, wearing out a defense in the process.
"We need the ball to score goals," freshman Nicky Galasso, the Tar Heels' top scorer, said. "Every face-off is key."
Keenan first tried facing off when he was fairly new to the game, around age 10. He did it because no one else would and because he was bigger than everyone. Others caught up in the height department - Keenan is 5-11, 200 pounds - but he's still ahead of most peers in face-offs.
He's part of a long line of successful face-off men from his storied high school program, Boys' Latin in Baltimore. Alex Smith, who rewrote the NCAA record book at Delaware, is a Boys' Latin alum, as is former Tar Heel Shane Walterhoefer, who holds several UNC face-off and ground-ball records, records Keenan is on pace to break.
Smith, who runs a camp specifically to teach face-offs, is highly regarded as a teacher of the "pinch and pop," the quick but powerful move that is Keenan's go-to maneuver. Smith might keep his hold on the NCAA record book, but he had high praise for Keenan after seeing him at his camp.
"He stated to Feifs, `He's going to be the best face-off guy to ever play college lacrosse,'" Breschi said. "That's a lot to put on a guy, but R.G. - it doesn't faze him."
Keenan is pretty cool. He thinks of each draw as a new game, but he tries not to retain the memory of past success or failure. He said Feifs, the coach who specializes in face-offs, has helped remind him of that.
"You want to win every time you go out," Keenan said. "It's a new game for each face-off. Every time I go out, he always says, `0-0.' So if I lost the last one, don't let that get in my head, but if I won it, don't go out thinking I'm going to win the next one. Go out and do what you do, and you'll win."
That's what Keenan did at a critical juncture in UNC's last game, a 9-8 overtime win over third-ranked Notre Dame. The Tar Heels (10-5) faced a man-down situation for the first 47 seconds of overtime, which is sudden death. But Keenan won the draw cleanly, and UNC was able to kill the penalty before fellow freshman Pat Foster scored the winning goal in a victory that enabled the Tar Heels to get a home game in the postseason.
The opponent Sunday at Fetzer Field (1 p.m., ESPN) is familiar: Maryland, a team UNC split with this season. The familiarity extends to the face-off X, where Keenan will go against a former high school rival in the Terps' Curtis Holmes, who is one spot ahead of Keenan in the NCAA rankings (61.2 percent to 61.1).
Holmes got the better of Keenan in the teams' first meeting, winning 15 of 20, though UNC won after trailing 4-0. Keenan and Holmes each won eight face-offs in the second meeting, in the ACC Tournament in Durham. But Maryland rallied with five fourth-quarter goals to win 7-6.
Both players are considered FOGO, but their skills go beyond the mantra of face-off, get off. Their teams aren't hurt if they stay on the field.
"He is a FOGO, but he's better than a lot of FOGOs in the sense that he can handle the ball and he's surprisingly quick when he needs to be," Feifs said of Keenan. "The game starts with him. He's the guy. He's the leader. He goes to battle for us every game."
Keenan might be the only guy on the team who doesn't mind if his minutes decrease. Because if Keenan's darting off the field, it probably means he's won another face-off and maintained the momentum that is such a big part of lacrosse.
He doesn't mind standing around and watching?
"No, because if we're running down and we're scoring, or we're playing good defense, I'm going to be jacked up for the team," Keenan said. "I just want to get the ball so we can score again."
