Cabrini “Hub Drill” to 4V4 and so much more…
Coach Steve Colfer, Cabrini Men’s Lacrosse

This coach simply blows me away every time I interview him with his creativity and unique style for many of his lacrosse practice drills. Although this most recent podcast has a ton of new twists on drills, I get a lot of emails on new ideas for “defensive lacrosse drills” and this one is awesome!

The drill begins a lot like a skeleton defensive slide drill with a recovery element, and then evolves into a unique 4V4 Drill with unlimited options and potential coaching elements.

The format for the drill is four cones placed in a diamond shape around the cage, or even a square box around the cage defined by the low profile cones. [private]At each cone there is a line of offensive players and defensive players ready to enter the lacrosse drill. The coach throws a pass or points to any offensive line to begin the drill.

Hub Drill – Phase One

In the first phase of this drill, the offense simply throws passes around the outside of the diamond. At Cabrini they have the offensive players catch the ball on their outside shoulder, then roll away, and pass to the next adjacent offensive player. The pass rotation can go either clockwise or counter clockwise or even both. In this first phase, the offense is not attacking the cage or driving, simply passing the ball around the outside of the cones.

As the ball is moving to each player, now the lacrosse drill becomes very similar to a skeleton defensive slide and recovery drill. As the ball moves to an offensive player the defender aggressively comes out to play the offensive player. At Cabrini, they run this drill with three poles and one shorty on defense, although it could be any combination.

Defenders are accelerating and then arriving under control, the defender can check the hands of the offensive player, who is pretty much confined to that spot. As the ball is passed, the defender very quickly moves or recovers back into the “Hub” area.

Again it is very similar to a skeleton slide and recovery, but initiated off of live passing by the offensive players.

Defensive Coaching

1. Approach
2. “Break Down”
3. Weight transfer
4. Accelerate and Decelerate
5. Arrive with a check
6. And Recovery back into the “Hub”

“Hub Drill” Phase Two, the 4V4 w options…

At Cabrini, after the ball has moved one time around the four offensive players on the outside… now we play “live” in a 4V4. Often times in this case the next slide might be adjacent as there is no defender inside.

When I ran this drill, we allowed the offensive players to move the ball in any direction, then we blew a whistle to initiate the next Phase of the Drill… the 4V4 Phase.

Now as the four offensive players are beginning in the “diamond formation” we can add any “little rules” we wish to work on for the day to initiate this next portion of the drill.

Offensive Coaching

1. Must begin with Pass Down – Pick Down
2. Must begin with an aggressive drive to the cage
3. Must begin with an “off ball” pick
4. Isolate on the short stick defender
5. Create picks to get favorable “Big – Little” Matchup, or a shortie on an attackman, and how we play,

I can also see this as an opportunity to integrate any scout look you might like. If we are playing a team with a lot of two-man games, this might be the “little rule” for the day.

Coach Colfer shared that in anticipation of playing Lynchburg who run a lot of three middies up top, in an “umbrella” type like formation, it was a good place to work on that formation as a “part of the whole” before 6V6 scout work.

To be honest, Coach Colfer explains this drill better than I, it is available in his own words in the Preview Sample, for all Free Members, just click here…

Actually the possibilities are endless… We loved this drill and the players loved it too, Love to get your thoughts below…

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