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5V4 GB Transition into fun!!
Coach Eric Wolf, LIU
OK, I now have a man crush on this great young coach. His practices are fast with five-minute drills and at the same time focus on fundamentals. This lacrosse drill is pretty straightforward, but an absolute blast to run. He gives credit to Coach DeLuca (Cornell, Duke, now Delaware.)
The drill has five offensive players and four defensive players at one end, with a goalie in the cage.
At the other end, the cage is moved forward to the opposite side Box, with the cage and a goalie at the opposite Restraining Line. [private]
In the offensive end the drill has a “Crunch Element” to it as we want the players to stay and play within the hash marks on the football field. This is important to encourage quick shorter passes, so if you do not have hash marks, place cones where they might be.
The lacrosse drill begins with a “Scramble” ground ball, perhaps rolled with the advantage to the offense. Now the offense is very quickly moving the ball in a 5V4 scenario to a shot on cage.
However, upon a take-a-way by the defense or a save by the goalie, or a quick goal, now we go into a clearing scenario. But in this case the defense clears the ball, while the offense is now “riding” they play in fast transition down to get a quick shot on the opposite cage, which is on the Restraining Line.
The midfield line in this drill is a non-existent factor as all players sprint down to play at the opposite end, but of course now it is 4V5, as the original defense has four and the (previous) offense has five and we play to a shot. It is almost a “race” mentality back and forth.
Competition Element: Scoring: If the offense scores, they get a point, if the defense gets it across the midfield line, they get a point, and if the defense scores, they get an additional point.
Love it eh?
You now have options. You can roll out another ball to begin a new rep of the drill with the same players on the field, (Coach roil three balls per group) coming back into their 5V4, or simply start a new group for a new rep. Coach shared that he may keep the same players on the field for three reps, thus now we have a pretty amazing conditioning element as well.
Just Click here to take 5 minutes to listen to Coach Wolf describe this drill in his own words, free for all members just log in.
One thing I love about this lacrosse drill is we can run the drill for all ages and all roster sizes. If you have a youth team, you might move the cages a little closer together (perhaps ½ field and run it 3V2…
Love to get your thoughts below,
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March 5th, 2019 at 12:09 pm
This has been a staple for us since I saw Cornell run it in 2006 (Coach DeLuca must have been there) very early on a crazy-warm day for Ithaca for early March. We added the rule, if the D wins the initial gb scramble, the ball has to go below the GLE. It generates the live clearing actions we want to practice.
March 6th, 2019 at 7:02 am
Great Comments Coach!
March 20th, 2019 at 9:28 am
Has anyone allowed their goalie to run out of the offensive end for a 5v5? As more teams perform a 10 man ride I feel this would benefit the goalie and riding offensive players.