A quick hitting team passing drill that emphasizes short/quicker passes like playing in a 2-player game
Set Up
Put 8-10 players in a group, and set them in 4 lines right next to each other (North, South, East, West). Players will start inside, and pop out 5 yards, catch and move ball. The next player about the receive the pass will start floating out as soon as the teammate is catching the ball.
Coaching Points & Principles
Progressions
- Catch and Throw with Outside hand
- Catch Outside hand and exchange to throw with inside hand
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- Catch the ball with the inside hand and move quickly.. body needs to open up when you catch so you can step to teammate and throw
- Stick Work – player should emphasize on making good soft touch typer passes, and speed up with ages/skill level
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The key for this station is to talk about picks and the coverage solutions. Picks can get a great tool to have on offense, but they must be done properly in order to minimize turnovers. After you about the principles below, have them go a light 2v2 with picks to the goal.
- Setting a pick, players feet have to stay shoulder width, and the stick has to be vertical between shoulders. You cannot move at all during contact, unless it was forced by the opponent.
- Ball Carrier – Should be patient and allowing their teammate to move into the area for a pick. If its rushed, the the defense can easily guard it. Get to an area you want to attack from, and let your teammate come over to set up
- Inside Out – The picker should Always Arrive Alone (AAA) to a pick, meaning they need to be deceptive. Fake cuts, or any motion to force the picker’s defender to get in a bad position.
- Angle of Approach – As the picker, your back/butt should be pointed to the space your teammate is trying to attack.
- Dodger – We want to try and dodge as close to our teammates should as possible. This give us a better chance to Stick the pick
Coverage Solutions – The defense can do a few things to guard picks, and the quicker we can realize on offense why they are trying to do, we can counter and execute the pick effectively
- STAY – The defense want to keep matchups and will try to stay guarding original opponent. In this case, we want to STICK the pick, which will essentially allow our team to get a step or advantage to continue attacking the space they want.
- SWITCH – The defense switches on all picks, and doesn’t carte about matchups. Here we want to SLIP, meaning quickly float to space behind the switching defender to see if we can connect on a quick pass to get an advantages
- DOUBLE TEAM – Teams will often jump or double team picks. The ball carrier must focus on running AWAY from pressure, and the picker should FLARE to support. Other teammates not he field should show as well.
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Picks are a big part of the sport nowadays, as they are a great way to create advantages on offense. That being said, if the defense doesn’t have a good foundation on the pick game, they can get beat in more ways than one. Make sure the players know all the options in case you need to change on the fly.
As a coach, you should determine what your core principles will be and try to stick with it as much as possible. This will give your players the best foundation to work on either for the remainder of the season. For practice, it’s good to have them know all options, so when it comes to gametime, and ups need to switch out of your principles, you can.
- Stay on picks as much as possinle
- Switch on all picks
- Double All Picks
There isn’t 1 right answer here, both can work very well. Here would be the main things to consider when deciding between the two
- Stay on all picks – This allows you to keep your matchups (A vs D / M vs M) but if the offense does stick a pick, you need need a good sliding and support system back side. The best ways to avoid this are
- Try to stay as close as you can to the dodger, and drive them away with contact from the pick so you can stay
- Get under the pick – if you have space to get under the picker, you can do that as well. This will create a slight gap in coverage and the attacker can re-attack you with speed, so you would need to get back to on ball quickly.
- Switch on All Picks – This will avoid most scenarios where players get out of position and limit the backslide slide system (even though that should always be in place).
- If I know I am switching on a pick, I can hold my spot as the pick happens, and then cover the attacker.
- However, By doing this, you can be put in uneven situations especially if the opponent is a great dodger, and you switch with a less favorable coverage.
- Double All Picks – This is a high pressure way to play, but risky. If you are playing a team that is less skilled, it can work. But good teams will be able to move the ball quick, and you get uneven advantages most of time.
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Add in a points system that gives the offense an extra point for a goal using a pick, and the defense gets an extra point if they have a successful pick coverage and turnover
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- Add in a shot clock
- put 3 attack and 3 defense in to make 5v5
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Play a live 6v6 game. Coaches can add in constraints that work on what players just saw in practice
- Initiate all offense with a pick
- Extra points for goals off picks
- Play 5 minutes with defense in 1 coverage, than switch to another
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