Jamie Ortega Player Study: The Complete Attacker

Jamie Ortega is one of the best attackers in the country, it’s no secret. Her playmaking ability stands out, but her consistency is even more impressive.

Over the past five years, including the Covid-19 canceled season, Jamie has been a mainstay in NCAA lacrosse. Freshman year, she set the UNC freshman records for most goals with 70 (20 more than the previous freshman record of 50) and most points with 86. Currently, Jamie has 429 points in her career, setting multiple records at UNC.

Averaging over 5.1 PPG, and starting/playing in every game in her career (83 to date), there is nobody that embodies consistency like Jamie Ortega.

Playing alongside star attacker Katie Hoeg, who was known for her incredible feeding skills, Ortega has always been a high level finisher. However, her role has continued to evolve in the Tar Heel offense.

We spoke with Zach from Lacrosse Reference (Lacrosse Reference and @Laxreference on Instagram) to help us draw more meaning to the numbers.

“Jamie's individual assist rate is the thing that stands out. This metric is essentially what percentage of your touches result in an assist; facilitators always have the highest numbers.” - Zach

Watching over the past few seasons, there has been an evolution to Jamie’s game as a dodger and a facilitator. Part of this is development, and part of this is an evolving role as older players graduate, like her counterpart Hoeg. Additionally, she has continued to demonstrate the ability to win matchups from all spots on the field (top, wings, and X). Her ability to win matchups, draw slides, and read the defense, and still make pinpoint feeds, on top of her finishing, are what will set her apart as one of All-Time greats in women’s lacrosse.

We are going to take a look at three areas in Jamie’s game that I think make her great: finishing & shooting, dodging versatility, and decision making.

Finishing & Shooting

Ortega has shot 58% for her career, with no season lower than 52%. She makes the most of her opportunities. Goalies are historically only saving about 25% of shots on net, and she puts over 78% of these opportunities on net. Let’s take a look at the variety of ways she can put the ball in the back of the net.

She makes this look easy, but this encapsulates her finishing ability in a nutshell. She flashes in the zone, starts to back out, but still presents a target. What she makes look so easy here is how she “feels” and rolls on the catch to avoid the crashing defender. This awareness inside contributes to her greatness. Hoeg fired this in a tight window to her in 2021.

This clip dates back to the 2019 semifinals versus Boston College. This “double cut”, or what I like to also call reactive cutting, is a staple in Ortega’s arsenal. She sets up defenders well, and finds a way to explode to her left and demand the ball. Being deceptive without the ball is key to success if you want to score without it always in your stick.

This past week versus Virginia, her timing was on display. This zone clip is similar to the Cuse one above, just at a different angle. I like how she gets higher around the 8 meter, giving her the vision to see open lanes and time cuts.

Here is a great clip from the 2021 semifinals vs. Boston College. I want you to revisit this clip when you review the “Decision Making” section, because how she handles the double and fires this skip pass is extraordinary. But I want to highlight her cutting and finishing here. As the ball moves, she times her cut, and finishes with ease.

While we will see plenty of examples of the dodge of her shooting and scoring ability in our next section, we’d be remiss if we didn’t show her UNC record setting goal, to give her 373 career points and pass former teammate Katie Hoeg. She dodges hard from X, pump fakes at GLE, and turns the corner. Nobody turns the corner better in NCAA lacrosse than Jamie Ortega. I haven’t seen someone consistently turn the corner and finish in front against top defenders like her since Jordan Wolf (my Duke 2014 teammate).

Dodging Versatility

In recent years, the concept of “positionless” lacrosse is one that has been on the rise, but mostly in the Men’s game. I broke it down with Maryland here. I think this can apply to more Women’s players, and Jamie Ortega demonstrates this on offense. She can score from X, from the Wings, and from top. What exactly about her dodging characterizes her as a midfielder vs. an attacker, besides where she starts on the draw? Jamie is a positionless offensive player now, in my opinion. Let’s take a look:

These first 2 clips demonstrate Ortega’s typical bread and butter off the dodge: attacking and turning the corner from low.

She makes a solid move, but study how she leans in, sticks her foot in the ground and turns the corner on the defender.

Again, vs a tough Syracuse team, she scores an almost carbon copy goal, but utilizes a pump fake. This helps get her hands free on the on ball defender, freezes the hedge and slide, and improves her angle for the goal. She gets topside almost on command.

In recent film study, I’ve loved seeing how she handles different slide looks. Virginia Tech seemed to show more of a hedge and recover look to slow her down turning the corner. She controls the slide perfectly in these next 2 examples.

Here, she uses what I call a “crossover bounce”, where her feet move in a crossover step. I break this down in our Women’s GLE Series for our FCL Online Members. She doesn’t continue to step away, but she re attacks the vacant space after the hedge defender leaves. She manipulates and controls the slide!

This example uses less of a bounce, and more of a hesitation and look off. Knowing the defender can’t sit inside the 8 meter, she pauses to give the posture that she is slowing down her dodge, or even about to feed forward. The defender leaves, and she re attacks and turns the corner! Poise at its finest!

While we will see more examples in the decision making section, here is a great clip of her dodging hard from the wing, out in space, and getting topside. It’s not so easy to send slides early given her decision making ability and the talent on UNC. She gets her shoulders turned, has speed to separate, and gets to the net. Turning the corner is clearly a mindset for #3.

The Notre Dame game was one I got to see in person. A tight one early, UNC broke it open and Ortega scored in a variety of ways.

She makes a hard split with speed. Watch how she “knifes” her shoulder through the stickhead of the ND defender. She gets moving to her target, avoids fading to the corner, and gets downhill. I’ve seen more of these downhill top dodges from her this season.

This next clip shows the advantage of attacking an approach.

The main difference here is that this is less of the defense being set up for a big initiation dodge, and more the defender approaching out after helping in on a rotation. Notice the defender can barely make it to the 8 meter mark before Ortega catches, splits, and runs by for the finish. Attacking rotations off ball movement is so tough to stop, and clearly Ortega shows she can win matchups off the initial dodge, or off ball movement!

Decision Making

Jamie’s decision making continues to impress me the more film I watch. For someone to amass the amount of points she has, the amount of decisions made whether to shoot, feed, and dodge is tremendous. Impressively, she has over a 4:1 point-to-turnover ratio with only 91 turnovers in 83 games. Jamie balances hitting the single with making the big play. Let’s take a look!

On this clip, Jamie does a good job of testing her matchup from the wing. When she comes out of her roll, she starts to recognize she probably isn’t going to turn the corner. Her eyes are up, and she delivers a feed stick side to a flashing cutter down the middle.

Not afraid of contact, watch how she pushes the corner on a hang up situation, buckles the defender, and steps off to hit the flashing cutter. She recognized the advantage and got it out of her stick quickly.

Jamie does a great job of reading slides. Here, she draws the quick adjacent slide from the Florida defender. She looks and pumps to the middle cutter, but quickly recognizes the 2-slide from Florida arrives. She steps away and hits the “single” to Ali Mastrionni. What I love from this point is how she “re engages” in the play, ready for Ali to re attack and gets herself in a scoring position. This is what it takes to be elite.

In the NCAA semifinals vs. Boston College in 2021, Ortega demonstrated high level decision making. Here, she handles the early double, carries around to attack, and eventually finds the skip to the pipe. She has a great ability to fire skip passes in addition to hitting singles.

Against Florida in 2021, she shows great skill in handling the double by rolling away from pressure. Instead of bringing it across her face, leaving her susceptible to checks, she rolls away. She sees the next slide shoot up to the “follow” (Miller, 19) and makes the next read to the flashing cutter. Jamie’s poise and stickwork under pressure allows her to truly read and make decisions.

Wrap Up

Jamie Ortega has the full arsenal. She might be the most complete attacker in the NCAA. For our young players watching and reading, I’m sure you have a few takeaways.

One thing I want to continue to leave you with is having a growth mindset. What’s your role on your team currently? What might your coaches have in store for you for the future? What’s your plan to develop? What skills do YOU want to add, or NEED to add to your game?

We at First Class Lacrosse hope to keep helping you on your path to development. Study film, put in the work, and keep growing your game!

Get Premium content for players, parents or coaches

Check out our community and become a member to view drills, webinars, film breakdowns, courses and more. Use code BLOG15 for an exclusive discount to our membership community on Circle!

Join Today 👉