‘I don’t know how you cover him’: How Grant Ament revolutionized the split dodge

The three-step split dodge that Grant Ament has pioneered since switching from attack to midfield has reinvented one of the most fundamental moves in the game.

His success with the split dodge and move to midfield is a testament to his status as an innovative player. In 2024, he led the league in midfield scoring, became the first player since Gary Gait to be an All-Pro at both attack and midfield in a career, and helped pilot the Utah Archers to a second consecutive ring.

Ament, like the rest of the Utah offense, has been off to a slower start in 2025. He has eight points (2G, 6A) through five games while shooting 11.8%. But his burst as a dodger and his ability to win in space have still been evident even while he’s dealt with a hamstring injury.

The Penn State legend has credited watching midfield greats like Kyle Harrison, Paul Rabil and teammate Tom Schreiber for informing his playing style at midfield. Harrison, in particular, has been an inspiration as probably the quickest and most explosive midfield dodger in the sport’s history.

While inspiring Ament’s play at midfield, Harrison is also a massive fan of what Ament is doing at the position. He religiously watches the Archers’ games each week because he considers Schreiber and Ament to be must-see TV.

“His skill set translating up to the midfield has been a ton of fun to watch,” Harrison said.

Harrison’s devastating split dodges inspired a generation of midfielders to try to break their defenders’ ankles from up top, dodge down the alley and shoot jump shots on the run.

His two-step split was especially deadly. The way he jabbed his left foot into the ground, feigning that he was dodging left before bursting to his right, devastated defenders who couldn’t handle his speed.

Ament has added another step to that move with his three-step, same-hand split dodge.

When starting with the stick in his right hand, he plants hard with his right foot, jabs to his left while starting to pull his stick across his body as if he’s going to switch hands and then swerves the stick and his body back to his right with the third step.

“He’s added that extra step to the same-hand [split],” Harrison said. “What makes that so difficult, man, is because you can go either way out of that. … It’s so tough because you almost have to wait on it as a defender for that third foot to hit the ground.”

“If you guess that he’s going [to the] same hand and jump that way, you’re in trouble,” Harrison added. “If you wait on it, like most people end up doing, he just explodes [to the] same hand by you. I don’t know, man. I don’t know how you cover him.”

The nuances of Ament’s footwork make this move brutal for defensive midfielders to guard in space. Because of his two-way go, defenders have to play him straight up and hope for the best rather than guess he’s going one way and be fooled.

One of the reasons Ament’s split dodge is so hard for defenders to judge is that he isn’t overly dramatic with his footwork. He typically keeps his feet within his shoulders, minimizing movement and making it impossible for defenses to sniff out a pattern or a cadence to his footwork.

“His feet never really go outside of his shoulders in terms of the width,” Harrison noted. “When I was younger, if you watched me split, you could come up with the timing if you paid attention to how wide my feet were based on where my shoulders were. If I was going to do the big wide right-to-left or left-to-right, my feet were typically wide, because I’m going to take a huge wide step to get you, hopefully, leaning with that.”

While Harrison had plenty of success baiting defenders one way and then going the other, wide feet limit a dodger to his pre-ordained decision and allow defenses an extra split second to react to a dodge.

“If his feet are super wide of his shoulders, then you know one of two things,” Harrison said. “He’s either switching that thing back to the other hand, or he’s not going to be able to explode with the same hand because that [first] right foot is already so wide.”

Ament keeping his feet within his shoulders allows him to surprise defenders who can’t read where he’s going.

“You don’t want to guess there,” Harrison said, sympathizing with defenders who have to guard Ament. “You’re going to guess wrong once and you’re embarrassed, right? You don’t want that to happen. What you end up having to do is waiting on the move. And, when you wait on the move, he’s too fast that you’re not gonna be able to catch up to it.”

Harrison has also been impressed with how Ament has adapted to feeding off dodges from above the goal. Whereas he made a living throughout his time in Happy Valley and early in his pro career by dodging from X and then finding skip lanes when defenses slid down to him, he’s learned how to manipulate the additional space above the goal to dodge to spots where he can feed.

“His ability to find pass lanes, skip lanes, dodge into the lanes … he and Schreiber both do this better than maybe anyone I’ve ever seen play,” Harrison said. “They dodge in a way to create themselves these skip lanes, these opportunities to throw these off-kilter passes. Whether that’s sidearm, underhand, whatever it is, it typically comes out of some dodge they just did to create that.”

Ament, Schreiber and another generation of midfielders picking up where Harrison left off and taking the game to another level has left a lasting impact on the newly inducted Professional Lacrosse Hall of Famer.

“It means the world. That’s what you want, right?” he said. “The whole idea is you want to play, and then you want to prepare the next generation to be better.”

The Archers will need Schreiber and Ament to play up to their standard as two of the best passing and dodging midfielders in the world down the stretch. At 2-4, they currently sit at the bottom of the Western Conference standings ahead of a crucial matchup with their rival, the Carolina Chaos, on Friday night.

If Ament can find his groove as a scorer by relying on the split dodge that makes him nearly impossible to contain, then the Archers offense will be on its way to bouncing back from its sluggish start to the 2025 season.