Box Lacrosse Ground Ball, Swing and Shoot Drill
This is a simple three-part warm-up drill you can use with your box and field teams to get your players to pick up ground balls, pass and shoot in the exact same situations they will see when the game starts!
We got this great drill from watching Box teams in Canada this summer. Many international teams are also using it, now that many of them are hiring Canadian Box coaches to take over their National Team programs. It's so easy, you can use it with youth and high school players too!
This drill combines stick skills with game situations in three different scenarios, so you can build up as your players grasp the concepts and improve their skills. Give your players tons of repetitions for building muscle memory scooping, passing and shooting in practice and before games.
The best part of this drill is that it teaches your players how to "Swing" the ball from one side of the field to the other. Draw the defense over to one side of the field to create space, then "Swing!" the ball over and attack the other side. Most importantly, it's how you draw the Goalie over to one side to open up the net!
Box Lacrosse Goalies are bigger with more pads, so they cover more of the Goal. Move the Goalie over to one side of the goal, then pass and shoot before they move over and cover the other side! This is why Box Lacrosse players are usually better scorers and finishers than players who only play against the larger 6' x 6' Field Goal with a smaller Goalie.
HERE'S THE DRILL:
Start your players in two lines up top. We usually run this drill with the ball starting on the left side of the floor (when looking out from the Goal or Goalie) so the ball finishes on the right side, since most of our players are right-handed. Run this drill on both sides of the floor to give both your Righties and Lefties plenty of reps!
- Related- Going Back to "Righties" and "Lefties": Box Lacrosse Coaches spend much less time developing stick skills with the weak side and way more time in game situations!
Figure 1.) Blue 2 will throw a loose ball into the corner for Blue 1. Playing loose balls off the boards is an important part of Box Lacrosse, learning to read and think ahead where the ball is going to go.
