Practice Plan: Ball Control & Advantages

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Ground Ball Progression – Open Field
5 Player Line Drills With Escapes & Dodges
Groundball Shooting
Football Unsettled!

Phase 2: Play & Decide – Focus Points to build on our fundamental skillsets, while adding in some light decision making

Week 3 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 continue to build on our foundational skillsets. Players will start to learn how to make reads on the field, and finding the advantages

Ground Ball Progression – Open Field

Set Up

Put player on the sideline, each with a ball. They will roll the ball out to themselves and scoop a ground ball. Continue to the opposition side of field and work in the progressions

Ground Ball
Kick, Ground ball
Goose, Ground ball
Ground ball, Escape
Kick/Goose, Ground Ball, Escape

Coaching Points and Principles

Accelerate through the ground balls
Working on eye/hand coordination
Escapes, emphasize stick protection, keeping the stick close to your body

Progressions

With older age groups, give them a time to beat.. speed / or use as a pre practice warm up
young age groups, work through the progressions as a station in practice

5 Player Line Drills With Escapes & Dodges

Set Up

Put players in groups of 5 (or 4 or 6 depending on your team size) on the sideline area. This drill is for ALL players so you can have 4-5 groups on the sideline spread out. Put a cone about 5 yards away, and another cone 10 yards away. Start the drill with a defender at the 5 yard cone, and a player with the ball starting at the front of line. When working on dodges with younger players, we focus on some of the foundational principles, like attacking the butt end of our defender. This forces them to cross their body to stay in position. The defender will start as a token defender and the player carrying ball will dodge/attack the butt end side. Once they get past their defender, they must run around the 10 yard cone and carry it back to the start of the line. The defender will chase putting pressure on them, forcing ball control and escapes throughout the rep.

Coaching Points and Principles

Ball control – cradle the stick close to body so it stays protected
Dodge the butt end off the defender
Change speeds to make it difficult for the defender to stay in front of you

Progressions

Make the players make a pass to the next teammate in line

Groundball Shooting

Set Up

Set the players up in a line about 10-12 yards from the goal. Add a cone about 5 yards away from coach, which will be the point they need to shoot at. Coach holds a stick out that the player must run under, scoop a ground ball, and then get loaded to take a shot

Coaching Points & Principles

Groundballs – get Low and accelerate through!
Get loaded quickly after, and try and shoot before the cone
Shooting – change planes, aim for columns!

Football Unsettled!

A fund game that introduces all even play and playing against pressure

Set Up

Make a 25 x 20 yd. field with a touchdown. scoring zone on each end. The teams play 3v2 and score by cradling down downfield, making passes, and finishing with a pass into the end zone. Once a TD is scored, the opposing team re-starts the game from their end zone. The last player to touch the ball on offense is out, and then the ball plays to the opposite end. Players can’t carry the ball into the endzone unless they have made 2 passes already. Everyone must move to find space and connect

Coaching Points & Principles

Cradling – Carry the ball vs pressure
Finding Space
Play vs Pressure

Progressions

Set more passing limits
Play 4v4 with more advanced players or u10/u12

3v2 Beginner Game - Live Play Intermediate Men’s Lacrosse Passing Small Area Games Small Area Games Transition U10 U8 Women’s Lacrosse

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