Defense “Keep Away In the Box” Like They do it at Virginia
Dom Starsia
He is one of my favorite interviews. This coach never ceases to impress me in so many ways, and this third most recent podcast was no exception… Coach Starsia covered a number of minor tweeks to his practice concepts in this one hour podcast and I had a hard time deciding which of the great concepts to write about in this article.
However, in the spirit of being responsive to your emails, lets go this direction. Perhaps the number one question from our members is a request for unique and different additional drills exclusive to our poles. Most of us have our favorite shooting or offensive drills but continue to look for new ideas on the other end.
We all have learned the importance of stick work with our shorties, and many use 15-20 minutes of shooting drills to get to a quick 100 touches with shooting drills. In addition, I know I have learned from the NCAA Lacrosse coaches the significant benefits of skeleton offensive time. But these are all great ways to drill the shorties and offensive players, but they do not include the defense. So how do we keep practice fun and different for our defensive players? Aside from the important time with re-direct looks and footwork, how can we spice things up for our poles while we are dedicating time to the offense on the other end of the field?
Thus a great concept from a great coach. I will describe this lacrosse drill initially as they do it at Virginia, a 5V5 into a 6V5 with their poles and D Middies. Many of us are already running a much smaller box drill with cones and two defenders inside and three on the outside of the smaller box, working on sliding, recovery and communication. This lacrosse drill is very similar — only up about three notches.