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Maryland Whipsnakes defenseman Matt Dunn

Leading through language: How Matt Dunn directs Whipsnakes defense

By Adam Lamberti | Aug 23, 2024

If you ever wonder why Matt Dunn is always mic’d up during games, it’s because he’s one of the most talkative defenders in the league.

Along with being a lockdown defender, Dunn’s on-field communication is a big reason why he’s up for both the Dave Pietramala Defender of the Year Award and the Brendan Looney Leadership Award.

“It’s not just Dunn alone; Timmy Muller is very good at it,” Maryland Whipsnakes head coach Jim Stagnitta said. “Dunn knows the game in and out. He knows the opponent. He knows the matchups. He knows the tendencies. There’s a bunch of young guys out there too around him, so it's even more important that he helps them and integrates them.”

Of course, communication is one of the hallmarks of a good defense. It’s necessary to keep the unit connected and organized amidst an offensive attack.

For Dunn, communication was that much more important as a young defender to carve out an identity.

“You figure out what you have to do to get on the field,” Dunn said, “and in high school and college, I got on the field by communicating … being able to play off the ball and being organized trumped our ability to cover on the ball.”

While on-field communication seems straightforward, it’s an art to be learned. Much like playing the ball, sliding and rotating, communication is a core responsibility on defense.

“When you’re on the ball, your responsibility is to stop the ball. If you're sliding from the crease, your responsibility is to be ready to support the ball. Well, the backside responsibility, a bigger part of it is to communicate more … because it’s a lower likelihood that you’re going to need to stop the ball,” Dunn said.

An important piece of this is anticipating possibilities before they happen, something the defender away from the ball can see more clearly than the defender guarding the ball.

Dunn sums this up nicely in one of his tweets. For example, if a dodge is occurring, Dunn communicates who the slide will be if the dodger takes the alley, and who the slide will be if the dodger sweeps to the middle.

By communicating both possibilities ahead of times, the defense will be organized if either of those things happen.

This talk might be organized before the play happens, but as the offense gets moving, things can get very chaotic. Not only is using words to communicate important for a defense, but so are nonverbal cues like pointing with your stick.

“If you can couple [communication] with good body language and nonverbal communication, you can pretty easily get on the same page in the chaos of movement,” Dunn said. “Sometimes the words might not be able to do it, but I can say, ‘Tim, inside!’ and I can point my stick there and now that’s going to help him more quickly on a recovery or something.”

While close defenders do the “lion’s share” of the talking, according to Dunn, it’s a skill all defenders (and offensive players) must be capable of in order to thwart an offensive opportunity.

And, like all skills, it becomes more natural the more you do it.

“It’s kind of a choice, but you can’t just not have the skill to do it because when the game starts, a lot of things are happening,” Dunn said. “If you’re thinking about communicating too much, you're going to miss other assignments. So that’s where it becomes a skill, it has to be something that you’ve trained and practiced; it’s more of a natural reaction to the game than something you think about.”

As a first-time captain, Dunn’s on-field communication (as well as off the field) has been vital in 2024 with a younger core of Whipsnakes players.

“Overall, his leadership both on and off the field is the way he communicates, the way he shares the messages, the consistency in how he's leading,” Stagnitta said. “I think he's just really grown into this role and is a big reason why our culture is so strong again. … I think he's done an unbelievable job and deserves a lot of credit for our continued growth and improvement throughout the year.”

For more of Dunn’s thoughts around communication, read his Twitter thread he published in January here:

Maryland will lean on Dunn’s defensive prowess when they take on the Denver Outlaws in the quarterfinals of the Cash App Playoffs on Sept. 2.

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