Cornell Goalie Matt Tully on Soft Hands, Stance Changes & Winning a National Championship – Ep. 301

By Coach Damon

August 21, 2026

Posted In: Podcast

This episode is sponsored by Thigh Pro. Use that special link for 10% off.

Cornell’s number 55, Matt Tully, has already won a national title heading into his senior season — but his path there wasn’t a straight line. In a recent episode of the Lax Goalie Rat Podcast, Tully sat down with Coach Damon Wilson to talk about rebuilding his stance from the ground up, the mental grind of being a backup, and why “clean saves” might be a little overrated.

Here are the biggest takeaways.

Third Grade and Hooked for Life

Tully didn’t start as a full-time goalie. Like a lot of kids, he split time between attack and net, first strapping on hockey pads to hop in goal back in kindergarten. But by third grade, the decision was made — goalie was his position for good.

What sold him? Control. “You can truly take over a game. You can truly lose a game,” he said. It’s a position that rewards those who embrace the pressure instead of shrinking from it — and Tully’s advice for goalies who find that spotlight uncomfortable is simple: lean on your teammates. Lacrosse goalie can feel like a lonely job, but shifting your mindset from “it’s all on me” to “we’re a team defense” takes a lot of the weight off.

Learning on His Own

Tully never had a full-time goalie coach growing up. Instead, he built his game through reps, failure, and experimentation — a theme that comes up again and again in his story. He credits a genuine love of seeing shots, even in middle school, as the thing that pushed him to keep improving. His take: if you don’t love the process, it’s hard to put in the work required to get better.

Rebuilding the Stance

One of the most interesting parts of the conversation is how much Tully’s stance evolved over his college career. As a freshman, he played too rigid — standing straight up and relying on positioning rather than athleticism. By sophomore year, he was working to get lower, widen his base, and trust his hands and movement instead of just “making a positional save.” By junior year, he found a balance — staying a little more upright through his chest to take away high shots while keeping the lower-body athleticism he’d built.

His advice for any goalie considering a mechanical change: make it in the off-season, not right before a championship game. Give yourself weeks to feel awkward before deciding whether the change is actually working.

The Hop, and Getting Your Weight Back

Talking through a highlight-reel kick save against Hopkins’ Hunter Chavette, Tully broke down his reset routine after biting on a shot fake — a quick hop to get back into an athletic stance, with weight split evenly on both feet. It’s a small detail, but an important one: if your weight shifts entirely onto one foot after a fake, you’re only ready to push off in one direction.

Five Game Days a Week

Maybe the most memorable insight from the episode came when Tully talked about his time as a backup. Instead of framing it as “not playing,” he reframed it entirely:

“Make it so you have five game days that week. Prepare like you’re the starter, and give everything you have to the team.”

It’s a mindset shift that turns a discouraging role into an opportunity — treating every practice with the same intensity as a real game, because in terms of time invested, practice days vastly outnumber actual game days anyway.

Soft Hands, Not Hard Hands

Tully’s current focus heading into his senior year is catching more saves instead of giving up rebounds. His explanation of “soft hands” is worth remembering: it’s not really about the hands at all. It’s about getting your whole body — feet, hips, chest — behind the ball so it has something to be absorbed into, rather than reaching and stabbing at it with just your stick and glove.

The Hard Hat

Tully also shared the story behind Cornell lacrosse’s hard hat tradition — a tribute to George Boiardi, a Cornell captain who passed away after being struck by a shot in 2004. Each year, one junior is chosen to carry the hard hat to every team event, practice, and lift, as a daily reminder of the work ethic and culture the program strives to uphold.

Final Advice

Asked what he’d leave other goalies with, Tully kept it simple:

“Have fun. Enjoy every second of it. It’s supposed to be fun.”

It’s a fitting bookend to a conversation full of hard-won lessons — proof that even at the highest levels of college lacrosse, the fundamentals haven’t changed: love the position, put in the reps, and don’t lose sight of why you started playing in the first place.