Essential Skills for Inside Play

Things happen quickly around the crease. Ensure that your players have the skills they need to be successful on the inside.

Revealing Johns Hopkins' philosophy on inside play, Assistant Coach Bobby Benson focuses on two areas:

• Stick Work - Quick, efficient stick work is imperative when playing around the crease. Benson demonstrates nine drills to develop good hands and quick wrists. His techniques focus on a quick catch and release, catching across the face, minimizing cradles, accuracy, proper footwork and more. Benson shows you how to modify the drills to play at game pace.
• Playing Inside - Benson teaches effective positioning techniques and principles to get your players open, create good goal cuts and produce scoring opportunities.

Benson delivers detailed instruction on effective cutting, screening and flare techniques to get players into open space. To perfect these techniques, he demonstrates drills that work on communication, awareness, catching the ball and finishing hard with accuracy.

In addition, Benson explains two solid inside moves used extensively at Johns Hopkins to create confusion and make the defense rotate out of its set.

Benson includes a number of drills from his shooting drills video providing tips and concepts on how you can use them to improve your inside play.

Developing a strong inside game will add an extra dimension to your offense. As a player, learning to move without the ball will put you ahead of your competition. This season, take advantage of the many benefits effective inside play has to offer!

60 minutes. 2010.