Step Backs and Re-Attacks
Welcome back to our latest addition of The Quill, where we talk about all things lacrosse and aim to create content to enhance the lacrosse community. This week, we continue to focus on the offense and dodging. Specifically, how to do so with keeping your head up. Taking a step back and re-dodging is a useful skill while playing and one that can get a defense on its heels. Watch this video to learn a drill that forces your offense to move and practice effective vision.
A common issue an offense can experience is defaulting to routine. What I mean by that, is it is easy for an offense to go through the motions as instructed by the coaches rather than react to what the defense is doing and play on the fly. One of the biggest culprits I see for this issue is that players dodge and move the ball within the designed offense without keeping an eye on how the rest of the field is developing. This can cause the player with the ball to miss a wide open back door cut or a skip pass across the field that would force the defense to rotate – thus creating an advantageous offensive situation. While running a set offense is a good tactic, we want to be sure it isn’t too rigid. When we have the ball, we want to create as many opportunities where the defense is strained and reacting. This drill helps focus on one technique that can help achieve that.
In my experience, the number one scenario where an offense can fall victim to routine is when a slide happens. Time and again the player with the ball either rolls back or passes it to the next adjacent player. Neither move is wrong, and is always the safe decision. Often, it’s the only decision and doing anything more would do more harm than good (like forcing a pass into a tight window or trying to split a double team). However, there are times when we can catch the defense out of position and capitalize on forcing them to slide. Taking a step back and re-dodging or looking for the open man is a great way to exploit the defensive slide.
In this week’s video, Coach Souza explains his drill to emphasize the step back and re-dodge technique. As with all his drills, there are multiple ways to run it and add variation. This is one of my favorite drills to run at practice because it focuses on a higher level of understanding for the offense. When executed, knowing when to re-dodge or find an open man can drive a defense crazy! As we mentioned earlier, routine can plague an offense so make sure that your players are reacting to what the defense is doing and not just going through the motions.
Watch the video and feel free to like, comment or share! Each week or so we will release a new video….so stay tuned. And as a reminder, if you like his drills and coaching techniques, feel free to check out his all in one field manual for on the go reference - which can be purchased here !