Practice Plan: Dodging & Defending Space

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Mirror Tag Game
Station 1: Space Gates Game
Station 2: Bounces & Re-Dodges
Station 3: 3v3 Read the Movement of the Defense
Scoop and Chase Game

Phase 3: Attacking & Creating Space – Focus Points being finding the advantages and playing vs more pressure

Week 7 Practice / 60 Minute Session

Please Note:The practice is designed to bring value across multiple age levels. You can use this as a foundation to build and develop your own practice. With that being said, we highly encourage you to adjust the drills based on your team’s age and skill levels. Lacrosse Drive should always be used as a starting point — you can make drills easier or harder by changing the constraints.

To make a drill easier, you might Increase the playing area, reduce the number of defenders or rules, add time or space to make decisions

To make a drill harder, you might: Shrink the field or add boundaries, add defenders or touch restrictions (e.g., “one-pass before shooting”), or Limit time or space to force faster decisions

Small adjustments to field size, player numbers, and rules can significantly change the challenge level while maintaining the same core learning goal.

Theme Description This practice is designed for young players to gain confidence with player with more pressure. We build it into small area games where they can learn how to get open, get their hands free, and feel confident to play vs an opponent and or the pressure of a time constraint

Mirror Tag Game

A fun game to start practice with!

Set Up

Scatter pairs across open space. No sticks needed. One player is the “Leader,” one is the “Mirror.” Partners face each other about 4 feet apart. The Leader moves, side to side, forward, backward, changes speed, and the Mirror must copy them and stay 4 feet away at all times. Switch leader every 45 seconds.

Coaching Points & Principles

Leader tries to “shake” the mirror (make them lose the distance or direction).
Mirror scores a point for each 5-second stretch they stay perfectly matched.
Why no sticks? We want pure body-reading here. Kids are learning to watch hips and shoulders, the cues defenders give before they commit. This directly transfers to drawing a defender

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Station 1: Space Gates Game

Set Up

Create a 20×20 yd playing area. Place 6 small gates around the grid (each gate = 2 cones set 4 ft apart). One attacker with ball, one defender guarding. Attacker’s goal: Run and Cradle THROUGH as many gates as possible in 60 seconds. Defender tries to intercept the carrier between gates. Scoring: 1 point per gate passed through. Let each group run 2 rounds, and then switch. The offensive player must maintain possession running through a gate, no drops and they CANNOT use the same gate twice in a row

Coaching Points & Principles

The gates are scattered randomly. The attacker must constantly scan, evaluate multiple options, and redirect
The defender must make decisions about which gate to guard, and the attacker can exploit whatever the defender abandons.
No specific path, no lines. Continuous decision-making.

Progressions

Have the defender play with no stick
Remove some gates, less options

Anticipation & Recognition Attack Ball Control & Cradling Beginner Defense Defensive Positioning & Footwork Disruptive - Light Physical Opponent Dodging & Escapes Intermediate Men’s Lacrosse Midfield Small Area Games U10 U8 Women’s Lacrosse

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Station 2: Bounces & Re-Dodges

Set Up

Start the players on the wing, with a ball in their stick. Add a coach or player about a stick length away or in light contact (shown here) acting as a guided defender. The player with ball will initiate with a bounce.. they step away from the defender, to create space. The guided defender will do 1 of 3 things: Take a high approach, a low approach, or stay neutral. The player with the ball will read the defender, and take the space given. If the defender stays neutral, the player with ball should initiate some form of deception like a fake pass, or a hitch to freeze and attack the space they want.

Principles and Coaching Point

Take the space the defender gives, and explode to it
When bouncing, get your stick in a loaded/PROTECTED position acting as a triple threat (You can pass, shoot, or re-attack)
Get your Hands free for a hard shot

Progressions

Start with a dodge up the hash
Play tougher defender forcing a double dodge

Station 3: 3v3 Read the Movement of the Defense

Modify this 4v4 drill to 3v3.. start the players in a triangle, and then decide which defender leaves and slides

Set Up

Put player on field in a 4v4. The offense will start with their backs turned to coach, and coach will tell which defender is the slide/help. Offense can turn back and get set, on whistle, the defender guarding the ball leaves the field and the directed help player slides to the ball. The offense must read where the slides are coming from and move the ball to find the best shot. The defense must slide, rotate, and recover to try and get the offense back to neutral by the time their 4th player gets back into play!

Coaching Points & Principles

Offense – read the slides, move the ball to pressure
Defense – Slide, Recover, Communicate

Progressions

Play 3v3 with the youngest players
Build to 5v5 and 6v6 for youth, high school, and college levels

Scoop and Chase Game

Set Up

Split the group into two teams, and put them in alternating lines at the midfield. On a Half field, we would have 4-6 lines of each color, being a full team drill. If working in smaller spaces like video, you can do 3-4 of each color. The drill starts with coach rolling a live ground ball into the play. The first player in each line will go try to win the ground ball. Which ever team wins the ball, gets the ball to the goalie and initiates a clear. If you don’t have a goalie, just have the players clear to a Coach up top. Once they successfully clear the ball, they will go back in on offense, and attack the goal. Coaches can manipulate the rules or constraints to make uneven situations or get players to explore other team concepts like picks, off ball play, etc..

Coaching Points and Principles

Ground balls – players should be working hard to win ground balls to start the drill
Clearing – Team is spread out and finding open spaces
Even & Uneven scenarios

Progressions

Add extra players in on offense to creat uneven looks
Number the lines up top, so only select players go into the drill (1,2,3,4 would be a 2v2 groundball play)
Shot Clock – Once on offense, create a shot clock to speed up play

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