Zone defense is great when you have smart, but less athletic players: Not really true.

 I had the privilege to run this same type of zone when I was in high school from a very non traditional defensive coach. I remember the other coaches not even understanding what he was teaching us in practice and questioning his logic. They where angry with him for disrupting the pace of practice and the slow stand around walk throughs over and over again. I should mention that we had run a man to man and a “basic” zone before this. Like UVA this past year we made a switch to this mid season. We came in everyday over the Easter break except Sunday to learn how to implement this properly. It took a whole week+ to get it into our heads and we were still refining it til the end of the season. Unlike UVA we made this switch not out of necessity, but as an upgrade. You see our defensive coach saw how rapidly our goalie was developing and how astonishing save percentage was for shots outside of 10 yards(keep in mind high school ball). He also saw how fast learners we where and had confidence in us to learn it. But it was the COACH who really made it happen. He was an excellent communicator and knew how to talk to young men to get our brains engaged and motivate us.

From the game we implemented it in we went undefeated for the rest of the season until the championship game which we lost by 2 goals. We noticed a 50% or greater decrease in goals against us from running this type of dee. It should be noted that this particular coach just happens to be Doug Carl,  VP of Eligibility for the Men’s Collegiate Lacrosse Association(MCLA). I see my old Dee coach has come a long way from his time spent on a swampy youth club lax field in the mid 90′s.

As for the slow down of the game … yes, sticks have plenty to do with that (which I noticed after watching the 1st half of Quint and Petro vs Gait and Gait in the ’89 NCAA Championship (http://laxunation.com/2011/04/1989-national-championship-syracuse-vs-hopkins). The ball is dislodged a lot less frequently these days. But the biggest difference is still the death of the 2 way middie. There are now so many more great athletes playing lacrosse. Unfortunately, we now take a an athlete in high school that’s a 6’1 190, fast, and strong, and say you’ll make a great defensive middie. And he does. And he’s a shut down guy, with a deeeecent stick. Well, a college takes a chance on said player and thinking the exact same thing. Great. Shuts people down, but is either a liability on offense, or just not as good as the 5’10 175 kid that can pick corners (but usually cannot play a lick of defense). There are a lot less clean breaks, etc. these days. So now we have to waste time getting him off the field. Even once the ball is settled, you always see the cat and mouse game with the pole/d middie and the offensive middie. Between that and the general substituting, the game is tremendously slower.

This is also the reason you see so many players changing positions once they get to the collegiate level. There are lots of kids that come into college, having been great scorers at the HS level. All of a sudden, there are plenty of other players that can handle and shoot and go by somebody, leaving said player as the odd man out. But because he’s too much of an athlete to not be on the field, he gets turned into a d middie. Happens to attackmen and middies. Same thing from college to pro.

That was a lot longer than I anticipated, so I’ll stop.

This is soooooo true and I can’t thank you enough for pointing it out! As a coach teaching a zone, the biggest problem you often see is kids believe the zone allows them to conserve energy and stay in one spot, when in actuality a zone forces the individual players to work harder both mentally and physically, playing defense in a more “offensive” fashion.

Great stuff Connor!

If we allow “O mids” to get off, and don’t force them to play D, teams will bring in their D specialists, who know the zone well. By keeping O mids on who might not be as versed in it, a team could see success!

It seems to me that one of the things slowing down the game is switching almost all the midfield between defense and offense. Clear the ball, call yellow and wait as players shuffle in an out.

Great article, keep them coming.