Three or four years ago at the Intercollegiate Men’s Lacrosse Coaches Conference I was really taken with a keynote message from one of my favorite coaches, Coach John Danowski from Duke. I just love his unique perspectives as well as his style of communication.

Coach began with a statement that all of us might learn from in terms of our practice planning and approach, “The hardest way to score is 6V6 in the box area.” So then this comment begs the question, how do we find easier ways to score? In more importantly, after we identify these areas, how do we increase our opportunities to put our players in a position to be successful?

In his keynote message in front of an audience filled with great coaches Coach Danowski shared seven ways to score, and the critical nature of communicating these to his

Zone Defense Debate, Why…Which Zone …and How to Beat It…

We have received so many emails regarding the article and Podcast with Lacrosse Coach Dom Starsia regarding the UVA Zone; it seemed to be a topic our member lacrosse coaches wanted to learn more about. So we called in two great friends of the site, Bob Shriver from Head Lacrosse Coach – Boys Latin and Jeff Goldberg, formerly of St. Andrews to weigh in on the subject.

I think the most enlightening part of the recent podcast with Lacrosse Coach Starsia was the quick adaptation to change one of the key traditional characteristics of his lacrosse team due to changes in personnel on the team. It seems a little out of the norm that successful coaches would be so quick to recognize a need for change. This is, or was, a coach focused on, a pure man to man style of defense with great athletes, focused on tight defense, pressuring adjacent forcing offenses to the outside, and working to get into transition coach, with a huge pedigree of success. Many coaches would have stayed with what has worked for years, but with changes due to injuries to key players, and a young team defensively, he felt as though he had to change quickly, in fact just days before their North Carolina game in 2011. The players rallied and the result was a National Championship.

But the changes were implemented with some degree of consistency. In the traditional UVA defense, shorties rarely if ever played inside, thus in this case it made sense to keep the shorties on the topside in this zone defense. And thus Coach Starsia went back to a zone formation in lacrosse practice he had actually played and coached years ago at Brown.

Although most DI and many college lacrosse programs run a man to man defense the majority of the game, many great programs will show a zone at different parts or segments of the game. Often towards the end of a game or half with a lead, or possibly a defensive lock off on strong offensive player and a zone behind, or maybe just to slow things down a bit against a strong creating transition team, regardless we have seen a lot of different types of zone defenses. But, hopefully as your humble correspondent, this is a zone configuration I have not seen much if at all. Some might play four corners with poles, with shorties on the inside top and bottom; I have run this with shorties bumping out covering up top and initially at X. Or the infamous ‘Backer Zone’ looking to force a player into a slide or a double team from inside or the crease defender to name a few.

In this case, perhaps simpler was better to get the zone implemented quickly.

The Gauntlet Drill from Guy Coach Van Arsdale

In our recent interview with this great coach I learned a lot, and my head is still spinning about more direct coaching philosophies. We often hear NCAA Lacrosse Coaches talk with passion about developing lacrosse drills that break down phases of the game. Coach Van Arsdale also adds a very direct singular focus to increase in these phases to ultimately increase the learning curve.

As you know I am a big proponent of multi-tasking and combining both offensive and defensive philosophies in our lacrosse drills. Again, learning from a great coach on the interview, maybe I need to consider a more direct singular focus, in his words, “Focusing on both offense and defense in a drill may not be the best way to get better, quicker, on either side of the ball.” Might just be that I was wrong again… Or at the very least — too locked into my traditional way of doing things, does that sound familiar?

All of us to some degree love to utilize movement in our offenses in the area of the crease. All of us are increasingly aware of the increase in the use of picks. All of us would love to see our players shoot with power through a check. All of us would love to more accurate

The Hill Drill from Brodie Merrill

In our recent interview with a great player and I believe a great young lacrosse coach, Brodie Merrill, he shared this awesome lacrosse drill. This drill works on so many lacrosse fundamentals for our players and is a blast all at the same time. Many times the popular lacrosse drills we get from top NCAA lacrosse coaches are predicated on the full field for the application of drill, as well as much larger rosters than most of us have at practice. It is hard to go, or build to a meaningful 10V10 when you only have five attackmen and ten middies. Or it can be hard to run complicated lacrosse drills with younger U15 or JV, less experienced players, this lacrosse drill works for everybody.

The really cool thing about this lacrosse drill is that not only can run it even with a 20 man roster, but it is about ground balls, (we are always looking for fast paced ground ball drills, as well as drills you can run if you are coaching by yourself at practice) emulating game scenarios, building a culture of transition conversion, a blast for the kids, and is different and engaging for the players with a slightly different look in every rep.

I love having an opportunity to interview top NCAA lacrosse coaches and learning how they change and develop new really fast paced drills to directly emulate game situations. In the podcast interview with Coach Breschi, we got some great ideas as well has having a lot of fun with him. I love the pace of their drills, integrating rides and clears into the drills, and creating scenarios where the players have fun, work on fundamentals and learn recognize ‘fluid’ opportunities and react.

But one of the key issues we run into especially in the sharing of the NCAA coaches’ full field drills is adapting them to a HS or Rec roster and practice.

I think we all love the idea of a full team flying up and down the field, with the kids looking up and moving the ball. The sun is always out and coaches are smiling everywhere, nobody ever drops a pass, and everyone feels undefeated.

In our recent interview with Coach Wilbur, Head Coach Onondaga, (5 Times National Lacrosse Champions, NJCAA) he shared this drill that I immediately fell in love with.

We have written over and over about top college coaches focusing on pace, intensity, and how critical it is to reinforce fundamentals with lacrosse drills that directly emulate real-life game scenarios. And if we find a great drill that meets these requirements, even better, if we can work on multiple fundamentals and if we can add some wrinkles to make the drill a little different on different practice days to keep the players engaged.

At the risk of alienating some of you, compare this drill to the typical 15-20 minutes you might run a more standard fast break drill with three attack and three defenders, patiently waiting, already set up in an ‘L’ in the box, for the middie to make the first pass to the point. In games, we rarely have only one middie getting down the field, or one down the field with one trailer. The drill we have been running for 30 years is just not realistic. For those still reading, here is the awesome drill. We can do better as coaches.

Integrate 2 Man Games Into Your Practice
Without Slowing Down Pace with Tips from Coach Berkman, Salisbury

OK, most of you know I am a true Berkman disciple when it comes to shooting drills to in practice to improve stick fundamentals, passion in lacrosse practice, and incredibly fast paced practices. We have recently gone back to the well for more lacrosse drills with this offensive minded coach following his ninth NCAA DIII Lacrosse Championship.

We continue to get many emails regarding the advent of the 2 Man Games, and how they work, what to look for, how to coach them in practice without slowing down the pace of practice, and my friend Coach Berkman delivered some great answers.

Why Integrate the 2 Man Games Into Your Practices?

Many of you know, traditionally I have not been big on picks. In our basic motion, we like to clear out, reduce the double team opportunities, and give our driving offensive players room to work and room to see where the impending slide is coming from to make the appropriate pass. In the case of the ever-growing pick & slip, most programs just do not have players that can make three to six yard passes effectively, including my teams. OK, as the kids get better, and we practice it more, perhaps I was wrong.

Disciplined Defense, from Coach Coon, RIT – Lacrosse Drill

This article really stems from my recent interview with a great young Coach, Jake Coons, and Head Coach at RIT. He really made me re-think how we coach defense lacrosse drills in lacrosse practice. I want to hit on his key points of how many of us as coaches focus on team defense, or slides, or transition defense but perhaps not as much on individual defensive skills. Especially in the critical areas of coaching Checks vs. Position, Recovery, Angles, and coaching how to react to picks even with ‘match-ups’ in mind.

Checks

I have been getting a lot of emails from you, questioning my perceived negative opinion on 6V6 lacrosse practice drills. It is not that I am against 6v6 lacrosse drills, OK a little bit, but they always seem to slow down the pace of practice when we are consistently working so hard to increase the pace of lacrosse practice. I understand the tremendous opportunity for teaching and coaching in 6V6, but as you know, I am kind of anal about the pace of practice. Not my thoughts, but based on all the input from the great NCAA coaches that contribute to our site. More drills, faster drills, more transition drills, forcing players because of the fast pace to stay engaged and have fun.

In our recent interview with Head Lacrosse Coach Purdie from Adelphi, shortly after he coached in the 2011 NCAA DII Championship Game, he offered a unique combination of both. This is really a 6v6 drill, but begins with transition. According to Coach Purdie it is also an awesome drill to add to your pre-game warm ups.

To set up the drill we have three attack players and three close defenders around the cage, and with a goalie. The drill begins up at the midfield line, where we have two lines of middies and/or other players currently not in the first reps of the drill broken into two colors of pennies. So for the sake of discussion, lets say we have our offensive players in White and our defensive players in Black.

This drill he refers to as a 6V6 is really part Scramble Lacrosse Drill, a thinking lacrosse drill, an ‘Add One’ lacrosse drill, and part clearing lacrosse drill, to 6V6 all in one. The element of the drill I love the most, is the way it truly emulates a game scenario, where all players do not arrive in the offensive end at the same time, and the options for the players to learn from the drill both offensively as well as defensively.

Coach yells out, “Two White – One Black.” Coach rolls the ball anywhere on the field even to the attack, Now two White pennied players, come streaking down from the midfield line, with one player in a Black penny coming down as a defender. Now we are 5V4, and we play.

Coach might then after ten to fifteen seconds yell out, “Add One White – One Black” and as we add two to the existing scrimmage (do not stop the drill or the action, just change the configuration on the fly) we are now 6V5. And then he may yell out, “one Black” and we are 6V6 and we let them play it out a bit.

On the next rep, with a new group of players, when the Coach yells out the numbers, it might be totally different. Your choice, pretty cool eh? On this rep we may yell out “Two White and Two Black” thus 5V5 the “add a White” to make it 6V5, and then finally “add a Black” to make it 6V6 and let them play. As coaches we have infinite options to have the players quickly react on the field very similar to the unpredictable scenarios that might happen in a game.

During the course of the drill, the coach might at any time, blow the whistle and roll out a new game ball, and the players need to find it, adjust to the current configuration and play. Sounds a little crazy, but the kids love it!

Defenders are constantly adjusting, talking, pressing out on the ball, recognizing and communicating where the next slide is coming from, and sliding, and recovering. Offensive players need to recognize and more importantly learn to anticipate first where the open man is, (Coach Purdie suggested that we want them to get to the point where they could close their eyes, and know where the other five players are…) then where the next slide is most likely going to come from, and move the ball.

The drill is also a great coaching opportunity to utilize your offensive communication calls, to ‘Clear Out’, or ‘Pass and Pick Off Ball’ etc, all in a setting that emulates a game scenario, and is fast paced, fun and engaging. The players really cannot go through this drill in their sleep as it might be totally different in every rep, every new call from midfield, or any new ground ball and re-start.

Should the ‘Black’ team get possession at any point in the drill, they need to clear the ball, in a live scrimmage ride/clear scenario, but when they reach midfield, with the same players on the field, in whatever configuration they were in at the time, the coach rolls out a new ball in the offensive end, and we have to find the ball in a scramble format, adjust and play, and continue the drill as above.

I have not run it yet, but I will this week, and I can’t wait. And again consider replacing your stagnant 4V3 pre-game with this drill to really step it up a notch, and get players thinking while they are getting touches.

If you have five close defenders and five attackmen on your roster, have the other attack and defensive players get in a line at midfield to keep them engaged, before they go back to the more normal location on the next rep. Finally, after five to seven minutes, change out the pennies with the midfield players so we get everybody going both ways.

If you go to the Interview Section of the site, any member, free or Premium can listen to hear Coach Purdie describe this drill in his own words, as a teaser or preview to the full length podcast for Premium Members…

Let me know how it goes, mike@laxcoachmike.com