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.
Practice Theme & Objective: Slide and Recovery — a core defensive concept focused on protecting the middle, supporting teammates, and restoring structure after sliding. Through small-sided games and adaptable constraints, players will learn to recognize slide triggers, communicate early, and recover quickly to rebalance the defense. The emphasis is on reading cues, anticipating danger, and working as a connected unit. By the end of practice, players should be able to:
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Identify when to slide and which defender becomes the “hot” slide.
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Communicate clearly and early to initiate support.
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Recover quickly and efficiently to fill vacated space after sliding.
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Apply these habits in live, game-representative situations where decisions are time-pressured and unpredictable.
The ultimate goal is for every player to feel confident supporting a teammate defensively while maintaining team shape and balance — learning that great defense is connected, not individual.
