Defense Lacrosse Drills

Welcome to defense lacrosse drills, where you will learn individual drills and drills for the whole team.

A lot of people don't know how to coach a defense. These people are mainly offensively focused. But little do they know that coaching the defense is actually pretty easy.

Here are some defense lacrosse drills that you can use at practice or by yourself.

Defense Lacrosse Drills

Drill #1 The Poke Check drill can be very tedious and annoying, but it does work. I can not stress enough how important poke checking is to a defender. It allows you to keep the offensive player away from you, and the goal.

The poke check drill happens when all the defenders are lined up side by side, with their long sticks to the right side of their body. The person at the end of the line, walks out and faces the first defense-man about 5 feet apart.

The player gets into a defensive posture and poke checks the first defense-man's stick twice. Then he shuffles down the line, poking each stick twice. This should be done quickly, but not sloppily.

When the player reaches the end of the line, he steps back into line, holding his stick on his right hand side. The line will work its way down the field. This should be done for about two field lengths.

Drill #2 The second defense lacrosse drill is One-on-one practice. One-on-one practice is just as important for the defense as it is for the offense. The defenders should practice taking away the ball, or at least preventing a good shot.

Start an offensive line and a defensive line at the top center of the box. As each person goes twice, move the lines to the top right corner of the box, bottom right corner of the box, etc.

If it looks like your defense-men are throwing too many slap checks, or too many "all or nothing" checks, then take away their stick and have them play with just their gloves. This helps body positioning, and also helps reduce penalties.

Clearing passes and long passes are required for clearing the ball into the offensive zone. If you can't pass and catch long passes, then I suggest practicing because nothing will get you benched faster.