Improving Your Lacrosse Skills

Mat Ward, a three time All-American Lacrosse player at the university of Virginia, says that playing wall ball is one of the best ways to improve your skills.  He says for him the skills did not come quickly.  He had to work at it.  He remembers that it took him “a month or two” to just learn to cradle the ball.  So his advice is stay with it.  Practice daily giving an hour or more to it if you can.
Once you can run, stop, turn and reverse direction with out loosing the lacrosse ball start drills to increase your accuracy.  Start as far as your field or at least fifty yards from the wall by scooping the ball from the ground. Charge the wall dodging, turning, changing direction until you get ten twenty yards from the wall, and take your shot --- over hand, side arm or under arm, same for the off hand.  Place a target on the wall.  Keeping practicing on that spot until you can hit it nine out of ten times.  Then move the target.  Cover all locations of the goal.  Then catch the ricochet.
Practice catching ricochets – high, low, in the middle, right, left, straight at you, anywhere a lacrosse teammate might throw it.  Practice catching bounces --- in every possible location.  Pay more attention to the off hand.  We usually have better coordination in the strong hand.  So pay attention to the off hand.
Change the distance between you and the wall when catching ricochets.  Start twenty - fifteen yards away. When you handle that well,  move forward five yards, etc.  It is a great exercise for improving your reaction time.

Ward says, “Patience is the key.  It won’t come easy, and it didn’t come easy for me.  It took me … months to get the hang of it, but once I did, my skills started to improve dramatically.”

Article by
Will Keeney
 

If you coach beginner through intermediate boys or girls lacrosse, I have found that PlaySports TV’s has a collection of training videos.

Lacrosse, Fastest Growing Sport in U.S.

Lacrosse, a combination of hockey, soccer, rugby and basketball, is a fast-paced, full of action exhilarating sport. Long sprints with abrupt starts and stops, precision throws and dodges are just a routine part of both men's and women's lacrosse.  The diverse action what makes it the fastest growing sport in the United States.  Today's lacrosse is played with ten players per side on a field 60 yards wide and 110 yards long.  Generally, but not necessarily, the women's field is larger, 120 by 70 yards.
Like hockey the object of the game is to send the ball through the goal posts of the opposing team.  After the starting face off, teams move the ball by throwing it and/or running with it.  Quickness is a desired skill.  So is accurate passing and catching with the lacrosse stick head (a "basket" on the head of the lacrosse stick).  Hands are not allowed to touch the ball.  The lacrosse stick must be used to move the ball.  Men's lacrosse involves a lot of body contact --- pushing, shoving, hitting the opponent's lacrosse stick, maneuvering to get the ball.  The rules are different for women's lacrosse and it is a quick passing running game with less body contact.
Today lacrosse is played by professional leagues, colleges, high schools, amateur clubs, youth clubs and pewee clubs. A recent count names over 600 colleges and 2,000 high school programs.  Not all of these are a varsity sport; some a cub sports.  But there is a movement growing to increase the number of varsity programs.  In 2009 more fans watched the National Lacrosse finals than the NCAAB finals.

About the author
Will Keeney owns www.slingshotlax.com