Women's Lacrosse: Building a Fast Break Offense (and How to Defend It)

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.