A fun game to play with you players early at practice, or make it a station when working on skill development!
Set Up
Create a small area using cones or lines on the field for boundaries. Every player will have a ball and there will be a coach(s) inside the play area as the zombies. On the whistle, the players will start running with their ball in the play are and coaches will walk around like zombies. if a player gets tagged by a coach or runs outside the playing area, they will freeze in place. Their teammates can unfreeze them, but rolling a ball through their legs, and scooping a ground ball. Continue for 5-10 minutes, and the kids will have a great run!
Coaching Points and Principles
Progressions
- Make field smaller so its more challenging or larges for less experienced players
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- Ball Control and Awareness – Keep your head up, stay away from zombies, and don’t run out of bounds!
- Communicate – Help unfreeze your teammates
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A foundational ground ball drill for early learning!
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 10 yards away, and another cone 10 yards away. Use a coach about 5 yards away, have them stand with a stick straight out with ball underneath. Player must run UNDER the stick, get a ground ball, carry around cone 10 yards out, and carry back to their line
Coaching Points and Principles
Progressions
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- Ground Balls – Get low and Accelerate through the ball
- Handle ball as you carry around cone and back to line
- Work on both hands
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A fun groundball drill that works on ground balls, recognition and teamwork
Set Up
Put players in 4 lines on the sideline, and give each player/line a number. Coach rolls a ball out and it’s a live 1v1v1v1 groundball. Once a player wins it, coach will yell out a second number, and that player will now be a teammate to the player who won the ground ball. They will play 2v2 to the goal
Coaching Points and Principles
Progressions
- Add a 5th line, so it becomes a 3v2 unsettled
- make a rule, that the defense must double team the ball!
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- Groundballs – win the battle!
- Recognition – think quickly if you are on offense or defense
- 2v2 game principles – Offense support teammate, move and give them space to dodge. DEFENSE , communicate and try to force player with ball away from goal.
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A fun game that emphasizes ground balls and teamwork!
Set Up
Put your players into 3 teams, smaller group drills so 2-4 players per team. You can use goals or cones as your scoring point. Coach will put a bag of balls In the middle of the playing area, and on the whistle, 1 player from each team must go get a ball, and bring it back to their scoring area. They can shoot on a goal or carry through a gate using cones as shown in this video. The next teammate in line can go get a ball, once they get back to line, acting like a relay race. The team with the most balls after a 1 minute session wins
Coach Points and Principles
Progressions
- Make field larger so they have to run more / smaller for less experienced players
- add more teams (4,5,6)
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- Ground balls – finding a loose ball and accelerating through
- Ball Control – carry the ball confidently back to your scoring area
- Shooting – if using Goals, add in shooting constraints (must finish on a bounce shot, as an example)
- Teamwork! Make sure players are rooting each other on
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A fun game to work on cradling and ball control!
Set Up
Put the players on one sideline, and creating a small playing area. Coaches are inside the playing area as sharks! Players must cradle and run with a ball to the other sideline, without dropping to losing the ball. Coaches should try to force players outside the playing area or check sticks. Keep repeating end to end, until you have 1 clear winner!
Coaching Points & Principles
Progressions
- Turn the minnows into Sharks!
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- Cradling – Players should cradle to secure the ball
- Escapes – Maneuver around coaches protecting their sticks
- Spacing – Find and attack the open space!
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