As a goalie its vital that you have a complete understanding of how team lacrosse defense should be played. That way in the heat of battle you can help command the troops to organize a successful defense stand. Awhile back I covered the basics of a man-on-man team defense and today I want to cover the basics of a zone defense.
Zone defenders move their position on the field in relationship to where the ball moves. While lacrosse man-to-man defense is certainly the most common and the style initially taught at the youth levels, a properly executed zone defense in lax can be very effective in limiting what an offense can do. It can also serve as a change of pace or surprise to your opponent who might not be expecting or prepared for this defensive strategy.
A zone defense is a great method to accomplish that as it can really dictate the tempo. Beating the zone requires multiple passes. Want a faster tempo? Play more aggressive trapping zone. Want to slow the game down? Play a patient, packed-in zone with no traps. If your team is outmatched physically, meaning the other squad simply has better athletes, then you might consider employing a zone defense.
Zone defense covers up slower defenders and can be used to counter an offense with fast, quick scorers. Additionally, a zone can eliminate penetration by encouraging quick double teams on the perimeter and packing the defense in. If your team has a great goalie who can suck up the outside shots, or even a mediocre goalie who is having a great day, many teams will pack in the zone and limit the opposing team to outside shots that they feel the goalie can save.
If your goalie is hot, you can pack in the zone even tighter which makes the zone more effective. If your goalie cannot consistently save those outside shots, the zone defense will fail. If your team primarily runs a man-to-man defense, your opponents will be expecting to face a man-to-man defense. Implementing a zone defense can be a fantastic change-up to confuse your opponents. Since zone defenses are a little more rare teams might be thrown off a little when they go up against a zone.
They might lack an offensive set that can adequately break down a zone defense and create good scoring opportunities. How often do offensives practice going up against a zone defense?
Probably not as much as man-to-man sets. In a zone defense your team is going to be content to pack in it and give up the outside shot. In this case, your team is content to give up those outside shots with high confidence that the goalie can absorb them. Regardless of which variation of a lacrosse zone defense your team is running there some general rules that apply to all types of lacrosse zone defenses.
Before we get into the particulars of the zone, I want to share with you these six crucial aspects of an effective zone. Implementing a zone defense is difficult, so be sure your team is following these rules during practice as you perfect your zone.
Easily the 1 mistake in lacrosse zone defense is ball watching. Where all 6 defenders have their eyes fixed on the ball and do not see cutters or screens in their area of the zone. To avoid ball watching a good rule of thumb is 2 seconds looking at ball carrier, 2 seconds head on swivel watching your zone. A offensive player should NOT be able to run through your zone without you getting a stick on them. If one teammate cannot get this concept of no ball watching and fails to see threats as they come into their zone, then the zone defense will fail.
Great passing is an easy way to beat the zone defense. The defense must keep their sticks up and in the passing lanes to the inside of the field facing the crease at all times to discourage passes inside and to get interceptions or deflections. Every member of the defense should be in their defensive stance at all times during the zone defense. Being in an athletic stance makes it easier to react when a pass is made or attackman cuts into your area of the zone.
If its a strong attackman vs. And the slide can wait just a second longer if its a All-Star defenseman on a rookie attackman. If there is no defender in that designated area, sending a slide from the crease is too difficult as the defender doing the slide will have to travel a long distance to arrive at the right spot before a shot is taken. So what if there is no crease defender? How does this effect our slide package? That package should be clearly and loudly called out so that every defender knows his role.
In the case of a wing dodge, the defense has a few options depending on where defenders are setup when guarding their assigned attackman. Again, this is why defensive communication is so important. The team must be communicating as to who will be the slide.
During an offensive set, a defender could start out as the primary slide but then be moved out of position when his attackman moves to another spot on the field. This way the defense communicates immediately as who then is the primary and secondary slides. In the image below, the slide could come from a player below the crease righthand side or above the crease lefthand side. In the case of a dodge from X the near man typically comes in the from of a coma slide where the defender sprints in front of the goal to stop the attackman and provide help.
Notice that the defender who is responsible for the coma slide must cheat off of his assigned man to be properly positioned to arrive on time. The primary slide will leave an open attackman and thus we need another slide to pickup this open man or fill the open space. This is called the 2nd slide. Now let me add a few more players to demonstrate what a 2nd slide should look like.
Here the offense is in a basic set. D1 is the primary slide and D2 is the second slide. D2 will cheat off of his assigned man to be in good position to help guard the crease attackman when the slide occurs. The dimensions of this picture are off a little but this should give you a general idea of how the second slide fills the space left by the primary slide.
As a goalie you want to not only ensure the team knows who is the primary slide, but also knows who is the 2nd slide? That way when its time to initiate the slide the team is moving as a fluid unit.
Regardless of where the slide comes from, defenders need to slide the right way. When a defender initiates a slide, he needs to do it using the proper technique. This technique takes a lot of practice as its very difficult to go from a sprint to this defensive position but its what all elite defenders know how to do.
So as a slider its important to consider this as you take your angle of attack. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer. These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.
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And the answer is Because, "Removing zone defense from play among younger age segments encourages movement and physical activity, and promotes the development of individual defensive skills Related: Try this great 2-on-2 Dodge and Slide Drill that we absolutely love!
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