1V1 Ground Balls to 3V2
By Mike Muetzel·
1V1 Ground Balls to 3V2 5
By Mike Muetzel, LaxCoachMike.com
I am always looking for ways to integrate ground balls into fast lacrosse drills. We always coach ground ball-pass-pass, pick up the ball and move it immediately. But finding good lacrosse drills that really emphasize this key element to transition lacrosse are tough to find, especially if we do not have a huge roster for full field drills. Here is a great lacrosse drill. It is applicable for all age groups, and can be run as a station, or in the half field. And we are moving more towards 1V1 ground ball drills as opposed to the traditional "Man or Ball" calls with 2V1 ground balls because I believe more often than not we are competing one against one in game scenarios for ground balls.
In this drill, we begin in the alley. Two players are going to compete for a ground ball. We also have an attackman (I use a line of just two or three) behind the cage at 'X', and an offensive middie up top above the box (I use a line of just two or three). We also add a defender which we position just slightly above the crease.
To make it a little easier to recognize we put the attackmen and offensive middies (two or three) in white, and the defender in the crease in a dark colored pennie. The rest of the players who are in line to compete in the 1V1 ground ball portion are evenly split up, white pennies and colored pennies.
We start with a ground ball, you may want to alternate, ground balls away, as well as ground balls rolled towards the two competing players. Whichever player wins the ground ball is immediately on offense, teamed with the attackman behind, and the offensive middie up top, thus the offensive side of the 3V2 .
The player who lost the competition on the ground ball is now playing defense, along with the defender stationed in the crease, thus the 'two' defenders in the 3V2… and we play quickly to a shot. If they throw it away, we immediately go to a new 1V1 ground ball competition and so on….
W hen we ran this drill, I just selected two attackmen and two middies to stay and rotate as the other offensive players, and two poles rotating every time as the defender in the crease. Then after a few minutes we rotated, and those players came to the ground ball line, and we replaced them with other players.
Let me know your thoughts, mike@laxcoachmike.com