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Wednesday is “Compete Day! at Merrimack”
Coach Mike Morgan
I really loved the recent podcast with Coach Morgan. He is extremely organized and infuses his passion in every practice. Often in season they step up the tempo and competition with a Wednesday Compete Day.
The entire 1 hr podcast with Coach Morgan is available for all Members, Free and Premium, click here
Most all of us have seen the benefits of creating competition in practice drills, and keeping score in a specific drill. In the case of Merrimack it goes up a notch or two…
The compete day is not just a single drill, but three drills run back to back with a cumulative score for running… and often can get chippy and at the very least highly highly competitive. The entire sequence runs for 15-20 minutes or so, thus extending the competitive element far beyond an eight minute lacrosse drill.
Competition Drill #1 — 8 Lines
This is a half field fast paced lacrosse drill that begins with a scramble ground ball into a 4V4. At the midfield line we have three lines of white, three lines of blue, of to the side down low we have a single white and a single blue.
Coach rolls out a ground ball and we play. If the offense scores they get a point, if the defense gets the ground ball and clears to the midfield line they get a point. We play to 5 points then very very quickly on to the next lacrosse drill in the Compete Day.
Competition Drill #2 — 4V4 in a very unique way…
Coach Morgan blew me away with the general dialog on practice drills and here is a great example. This drill kind of starts with a 5V4 then into a 4V4 and then a build up element as well,
This drill begins at the midfield line with a face off specialist facing off but by himself. In essence it is a skeleton face off. The FOGO pinches or pops, then brings the ball down to the offense and defense, four on offense and four on defense, then the FOGO returns to midfield. And we play 4V4 at the offensive end.
The offense scores a point if they score a goal, the defense gets a point if they get the ball, and clear just up to the 30 yard line to keep the reps of the drill moving fast.
Then immediately, another “skeleton” face off, but now the FOGO passes off into a 5V5, we continue then the next rep, same thing but into a 6V6. This “compete” segment usually is another 8-10 minutes.
Now it gets awesome!!!
Competition Drill #3 — 5V5 Pick your team!
This final drill is a single rep or you could play to three or five however…
The “White” sends out there five best players, and “Blue” sends out their five best offensive players and we play. The other players are not in the drill but engaged and cheering as this is the last element of competition day.
It is typically just five players on offense and defense, however they may play where they can sub out a player to keep it interesting on some days,
You gotta love this eh?
If you listen to the full podcast free for all of our members, these drills come on about the 21 minute mark into the podcast, just click here,
