The last time Justin Guterding played in a championship game was his final day as a member of the Duke Blue Devils lacrosse program in 2018. The attackman, who graduated as the NCAA record holder in career goals (212), scored two goals and added an assist, but Duke fell to Yale.
It looked like 2021 would continue Guterding’s championship game drought as a pro, but a trade prior to the last weekend of the PLL regular season sent him from the last-place Chrome to the defending champion Whipsnakes.
Now, for the first time in his four-year career, Guterding is headed to the championship game, and he couldn’t be more excited.
“I will never forget the feeling of losing on that last day, so I hope to turn it into a different narrative and come out champions on the 19th,” he said. “I will have a ton of family and friends there, so it is going to be an amazing environment, and I can’t wait to make them all proud.”
Guterding said if the Chrome were healthy in 2021 — star attackmen Jordan Wolf and Randy Staats both missed the entire season with injuries (Wolf started the first game but was injured before halftime) — they had a great chance to work their way to the championship game, but “the cards didn’t play out that way.”
The Chrome lost consecutive games in Week 4 and Week 5, and Guterding did not register a single point in either contest. He felt the end of his tenure with the team was near after Chrome coach Tim Soudan informed him he would not be part of the team’s roster for the doubleheader in Colorado Springs.
“Obviously, I was frustrated, but I knew I wasn’t performing at the level I needed to be to be a starter on a professional team,” he said. “It was a first for me, knowing that I wasn’t ‘needed’ on that team, and he believed they could be better without me, so I was in a weird place for the first time in my career, questioning my ability to compete at the highest level.”
As the cliché goes, when one door closes, another opens.
The Whipsnakes were mired in a 1-3 slump and looking to add options on the offensive side of the ball. Head coach Jim Stagnitta struck a deal with the Chrome, sending them defender Nick Grill in exchange for Guterding.
“We weren’t very dynamic at the midfield,” he said. “While there weren’t any midfielders available I felt would fill that role, I’ve seen Gutty play for years. I watched him in college. I knew the quality of player he was, and I thought he had a wider skill set than he showed for the Chrome.”
When the trade was made official, Guterding told Stagnitta he would do whatever it took to help the Whipsnakes win another championship. So far, he’s done just that; in two games to end the regular season, Guterding totaled three points. He’s added another three points in two playoff games.
“Knowing [Matt] Rambo was coming back, and I would be running out of the box drawing a short stick a majority of the time, I knew I could help this team win,” he said. “My role now is more of a wing dodge initiator and two-man game player, which is what I always loved to do.”