Before Andrew McMeekin ever took a faceoff as a Boston Cannon, he was sitting at a desk at Princeton, a pen in his hand and a field diagram in front of him.
Each week, McMeekin and Princeton faceoff coach Casey Dowd would watch their opponents at the stripe and mark where the ball went — who won it, where they won it and what they did with it next.
It was meticulous. It was old school. And it was a lot of paper.
McMeekin’s best friend and Princeton teammate, David Smythe, observed their diligence for a year.
“Finally, I was like, ‘There’s an easier way to do this,’” Smythe said.
The computer science major spent a few days over winter break turning McMeekin’s pen-and-paper process into a program built specifically for him.
The web app tracked the game the way McMeekin actually saw it, not simply as wins and losses, but as a collection of tendencies. Where did the ball go? Where did a player prefer to send it? Did McMeekin technically win the faceoff but lose possession moments later? By overlaying games and filtering out anomalies, the program helped sort out patterns buried inside the film.
“Those small, microscopic advantages of data are something that he really wanted to pull out,” Smythe said.
McMeekin had long been obsessed with film. It wasn’t just something he studied when preparing for an opponent. He was constantly looking for another detail he could pick apart and understand.
“I’ll walk into his room, and he’s watching faceoff highlights from some game,” Smythe said. “He doesn’t watch the actual highlights. He’s just watching the faceoff highlights from some random YouTube account that has like 300 views.”
The team went through iterations of the app, refining it until they landed on a version that captured the right details. The effectiveness was tested on game day.
“And apparently, it works. Meeks had a great year, not to say I had anything to do with that,” Smythe laughed.
McMeekin helped Princeton win a national championship, offering early validation of a process built on tiny details and incremental advantages. Now, he’s brought that same philosophy to the professional game. He leads the league in faceoff win percentage at 62% and has been one of the driving forces behind Boston’s season.
Andrew McMeekin's nine points are the third most in @PremierLacrosse history, behind:
— Adam Lamberti (@atlamberti) August 9, 2026
- Joe Nardella (12 in 2019)
- Trevor Baptiste (10 in 2022)
Every point from his rookie season for @PLLCannons 👇 pic.twitter.com/6RNI0dgSY9
The ripple effect
Winning the faceoff is only one piece of the puzzle. McMeekin’s value for the Cannons has been that his individual preparation makes the game easier for everyone around him.
“He does a full-blown faceoff scouting report to our team in every team meeting,” offensive coordinator Will Mannysaid. “He straight up has a game plan.”
For McMeekin, the faceoff isn’t a two-man battle at the stripe. It’s 3-on-3, and every player has a role in its success. He plans for where the ball will go, not where it starts. Utilizing data allows him to send his wings with a purpose.
He’s already changed head coach Brian Holman’s philosophy on the position; now he’s eliminated the guessing and cut down reaction time for teammates like veteran long-stick midfielder Ethan Rall.
“In the past, it was a lot more get in there and react to the ball,” Rall said. “Where now the reacting is getting taken away, and I can just go as fast as I can into spots, and the ball’s gonna be there for me; I just gotta make a play on it.”
But turning data into results requires more than simply knowing the numbers. McMeekin puts himself into the equation, considering how his own tendencies might change what the numbers suggest. It’s part science, part creativity.
That approach has earned him the trust to take ownership of Boston’s wing play. It took a few weeks, McMeekin said, for his teammates to fully understand his process, but when Holman handed him the responsibility, he didn’t hesitate.
“I was like, ‘Perfect. I’ve got plenty of ideas,’” the rookie said, smiling. “All I’ve got is ideas.”
A master of his craft, McMeekin is excited to introduce Holman to this way of thinking. Now, Holman is all over it.
“He’s done a wonderful job with our wing play. Like, it is so precise and so organized,” Holman said. “Again, it’s totally flipped my switch on the faceoff.”
That preparation showed up when the Cannons needed it most.
Andrew McMeekin is the best faceoff man in the PLL in 2026 @PremierLacrosse
— James Hogan V (@james_hoganv) August 7, 2026
His ability to win the ball clean and create instant offense has completely changed this Cannons team since he arrived. pic.twitter.com/gYbI1GHdbM
Last Friday night, Boston trailed for much of its home debut against the Maryland Whipsnakes and entered the final minute down by two. But on the sideline, there was never a sense that the game was gone.
McMeekin won the final two faceoffs, helping Boston force overtime, then won the opening draw of sudden victory. Marcus Holman finished the comeback with a two-pointer.
The team never counted themselves out, in large part because they knew who they had at the stripe and what he could do with the ball. It’s a combination of McMeekin’s pregame scouting coupled with in-game adjustments for himself and the rest of the team.
“He watches film after every faceoff and sees the open lanes, and communicates that to our attack,” Manny said. “There’s no other unit in the league that does that.”
A lacrosse player
The biggest twist in McMeekin’s game may be that, for all the attention he gets at the stripe, he can simply play lacrosse.
“Most of those [faceoff] guys can’t handle the ball,” Holman said. “He’s just added a whole new element to our game, to our team.”
He wins the faceoff or causes a turnover. He picks up ground balls, creates offense, scores and, perhaps most importantly, doesn’t give possessions away.
For him, taking the faceoff is not an exclusive role.
“I feel like we almost went a little too far with the faceoff guy type thing,” McMeekin said. “You can’t lose being a lacrosse player in specializing.”
While redefining the position was never his goal, it’s been fun to reflect on the impact he’s made in just nine games.
“I’ve been getting messages from kids after the game telling me that I’m changing the way that they think about facing off after watching me play,” McMeekin said. “And that’s really motivating.”
The undrafted rookie has entered the conversation for Rookie of the Year and Faceoff Specialist of the Year. He sits third in single-season points by a faceoff specialist in PLL history with nine, behind Joe Nardella and Trevor Baptiste.
For someone who spends so much time studying the smallest details of the game, McMeekin has created an impact in Boston that has rippled far beyond the stripe.