“The Beast Lacrosse Drill” Mike Murphy, Colgate

Sometimes the best lacrosse drills are just the simplest lacrosse drills. This lacrosse drill is easy to set up, easy to run, extremely fast, a ton of ball movement…and just plain fun.

I love often running these 50-70- yard transition drills to end my practices rather than just plain running gassers or suicides. I love the running transition into build up drills, add one drills, fast-fast-fast, with hidden conditioning. And now I have a new weapon in the arsenal.

Coach Mike Murphy gives the original credit to the drill to Coach Simmons Jr. a few years back at Syracuse, but regardless it is fun lacrosse drill to develop a number of fundamental skills. Actually the Colgate players love this drill so much they might run it two to three times a week.

The lacrosse drill is just a flat out 6V4 drill to a quick look. We begin with six offensive players at the midfield line. To make the drill more game realistic we might have three lines of attack, and three lines of middies positioned up top.[private]

Down towards the cage we have two lines of defenders on each side positioned in the alleys, but back far enough where we really have room to play. Again, you may want to have the top lines of your defenders D Mids and LSM’s to make it a little more realistic.

Defenders and goalies MUST

1. Communicate
2. Rotate effectively

Coach tosses a ball to any of the six offensive players and they streak into the box. At the same time four defenders, one from each line enter the drill, and we quickly play 6V4.

At Colgate they ask the streaking offensive players to “get to their spots” rather than just scramble….and we play. It is a very quick look to a shot. The offensive players have to run back to the midfield line to get in line, so it is a sprint down and a hard run back for them on the conditioning side. New groups begin almost as soon as the ball is shot, it runs very ver fast. The rep runs to a shot or a take-a-way, or ten seconds… Count it down!

It may seem unfair to the defensive players, however they will make more stops than you might think. At the same time it is truly realistic as often the transition moments down from the far restraining line or even midfield will often be a 6V4 for two to four seconds.

Keeping score is essential, at Colgate it is two points for a goal, and a point for the defenders on a stop… and the entire drill is only eight minutes. On the podcast page all of our members (including free members) can listen to Coach Murphy describe all this in his own words, it is only five minutes!! Just Click Here!

To make it fun, you could also add some new elements… For example, have the defenders double the second pass, or just sit in a zone… great stuff!

Love to get your thoughts below! Or email me
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