with Steve Wagner,
College at Brockport Head Women's Lacrosse Coach; 2016 SUNYAC Coach of the Year
Fast breaks and well-executed transitions can put your opponent on their heels, but many teams squander this opportunity. With a sound knowledge of spacing and various formations, you can improve your likelihood of scoring off a fast break.
Brockport head coach Steve Wagner walks you through both white board illustrations and on-field demonstrations of progressive spacing and formation drills. These drills will help you create a 2v1 situation and optimize your fast break transition scoring - while not allowing your opponents to operate in fast break situations.
Develop a Fast Break Using Game-like Drills
Utilizing full-field drills involving players at all positions, Coach Wagner demonstrates the need for fast ball movement, faster off-ball movement, and making fast decisions as cornerstones of an effective fast break. All drills emphasize the need to establish proper spacing, use cuts that are timed properly and play effectively away from the ball in order to have the most effective possible fast break.
The progressive drills in this video allow you to develop and improve your team's transition at an appropriate pace. Wagner's progressive "Spaces" drill teaches players how to position themselves in spaces that allow for various formations, which lead to a 2v1. This drill also allows the defense to perfect their slides, hands on the ball handler, and man-down communication skills. Wagner reviews the drill stages, reinforcing some of the key priorities of each.
- 2v1 Straight Line - Builds confidence in your attacks and middies with an understanding of basic structure, while defenders and goalies work on forcing a hard pass.
- 3v2 Triangle - Establishing a triangle on the field will allow your offense to take advantage of the man up situation. Meanwhile, the defense works on slides and stick position.
- 4v3 Box - Teaches players to look to the open player for the easy pass and then a drive against the sliding defender.
- 5v4 Dice - Formation establishes an offensive player "occupying space" in the 8M and her teammates in a box formation to take advantage of the open player pass, then a drive to goal scenario.
Other drills include:
- One Minute Drill (Speed/Reps) - Wagner utilizes a faster-paced drill that allows for more repetition, yet incorporates the same shapes/ formation principles to help create and find the 2v1 opportunity.
- Scramble Drill (Game Realistic) - Lastly, Wagner introduces a 6v6 Scramble drill, where all the concepts and formations learned in the more controlled transition drills are executed in a game-like setting.
Oftentimes, teams practice attacking fast breaks without taking the time to work with a defensive scheme during fast breaks against them. By incorporating defensive personnel into drills, Coach Wagner offers the opportunity to develop fast break defense by emphasizing communication, sliding, and teamwork in order to make a fast break offense work harder to generate shots on goal during a fast break situation.
71 minutes. 2017.
LXD-05130B:
with Steve Wagner,
College at Brockport Head Women's Lacrosse Coach; 2016 SUNYAC Coach of the Year
Successful women's lacrosse programs utilize transition as part of their offensive playbook. While the benefits of a great fast break have been much documented, in order to maximize scoring opportunities, a team must be able to attack the goal in transition when numbers are even, or even when an offensive team is down a player.
Using an effective, balanced approach, Brockport head coach Steve Wagner presents a slow break that is both dynamic and efficient, allowing teams to continue the attack once a fast break is shut down, but before 7v7 play begins. Using this approach, your team will be able to generate scoring opportunities in all situations off of a clear.
Coach Wagner provides a complete plan for teaching an effective slow break that you can use with your team right away. Following an overview of slow break basics, you will learn seven steps of an effective slow break that include multiple scoring opportunities. Coach Wagner breaks down each step of the progression on a whiteboard before taking you out to the field to demonstrate it with his team. You will learn a drill to practice all seven steps of the slow break in a progressive fashion.
Game-Like Drills to Develop a Slow Break
Utilizing full-field drills involving players at all positions, Coach Wagner demonstrates the need for fast ball movement, faster off-ball movement, and making fast decisions as cornerstones of an effective fast break. All drills emphasize the need to swing opposing defenders to one side, allowing the ball to go into space. Then, using a series of cuts and drives to the goal, Wagner shows how a defense can be taken advantage of before 7v7 play is initiated.
Whether the situation calls for a drive to goal, draw-and-dump opportunity, or feeding cutters, the drills and strategy call for perfect timing in order to achieve maximum looks on goal during a slow break.
Emphasis on Attacking Zone Teams
By instituting an effective slow break, Coach Wagner provides an opportunity to attack teams that employ zone defenses. He demonstrates the need to shift a defense to one side of the field off of a clear, attack the other side, and provide open looks after off-ball play, neutralizing zone teams until the ball has settled down.
As teams are expected to employ more zone defense as a result of the coming possession clock rule, Coach Wagner's slow break scenario is an ideal fit for a team looking to continue an up-tempo attack against zone defenses trying to slow them down.
76 minutes. 2017.