Face Off Drills Solo or With a Partner Coach

Face offs are a key segment of the game that has an immediate impact on both possessions as well as scoring opportunities. Unfortunately, very few programs have a specific face off coach or even enough coaches to spend dedicated time in this important area.   

Being a great lacrosse faceoff man  can create opportunities for a player to find his niche on the team and excel.  It’s a position that takes a lot of unique practice from the rest of the team. Strategy, discipline, focus, speed, and power in each faceoff to be the best. It takes more than wanting to be the best when it comes to excelling at lacrosse faceoffs, it’s all about what you’re willing to do to win.

Faceoffs are all about hand speed and reaction time to the whistle.  Players typically use a clamp, jam, and rake to gain possession of the ball along with different hand grips.  The more versatile a  player is the better.   Practicing faceoffs are all about muscle memory, focusing on technique, and quickness.  You need to always have focused practice to improve your reaction time and abilities.  

Below are some drills to improve reaction time and technique that you can do with a coach or a player who can practice on his own. 

Lacrosse Faceoff Drills with a partner/coach

1. Hear the Whistle 

   1. The player sets up without a stick like fast hands based upon hearing the whistle.  

   2. Every second whistle is blown, grab the ball as fast as possible and repeat. 

   3. The objective is to work on reaction time without faulting. 

1. Forward or Back  

   1. start in the middle at x with a partner to simulate a full faceoff. 

   2. get down, set, and once the partner blows the whistle, they call out forward or back. 

   3. The faceoff guy shoots and tries to then direct the ball to another player. 

   4. The faceoff man should then try to recover the ball where it was directed.  

1. Normal 1v1

   •  Get at it and compete  against an opponent at full spade with a down, set, go cadence.

2. Goosing

   1. works on pushing the ball forward and then pushing the ball to your wing men. 

   2. After a down call, the coach will blow the whistle and proceed to roll the ball out to a particular side. 

   3. Here, we’re trying to simulate pushing the ball out a bit too far so that the offensive wing man can take it quickly and move it up field. 

   4. This “goosing” pass is more of a push pass than a full-out pass. 

   5. The goal here is to simply get the ball away from trouble.

      Over under
      Make a line right behind the face-off X. There will be one midfielder to start at the X and then another player out on the wing. The wing man will serve as the outlet man for this drill. Next, the coach will say down and then blow the whistle. The man at the X will give his teammate directions (Over or Under), find the ball and then hit the outlet guy in stride. The outlet guy will then go to the end of the line while the face-off man becomes the outlet player. Remember to listen to your teammates around you, find that ball and shoot it out to them. Stay low at all times and keep that proper form, too.
      
      Hands
      In this drill, players will line up side-by-side in typical face-off stance. Make sure there is plenty of room between each player. The coach will then blow the whistle 10-20 times in a row. With each whistle, the key here is for everyone to give a short chop over the ball and then make a fast jump back in ready position. We are working on fast hands and wrists, getting back into ready position, and getting familiar with the whistle.

Back to Back Face Off Drill

- The ball is placed on a line

- Start with 2 players standing over the ball, hip to hip, facing away from each other.

- On the whistle, the two players begin to drive their hips backwards into the other player in a low position.

- When one player has driven the other player back to the point where both of his toes have gone across the line, he then picks up the ball.

- At this point the drill is "live" and the player needs to stay low to the ground, pick up the ball, and run away from traffic.

- The critical point of the drill is for both players to stay hip-to-hip with their feet chopping constantly.

- Players must stay engaged.  In other words one player may not just step to the side and let the other fall back.

Lacrosse Faceoff Drills on their own.

Use a Timer, Alarm, Stopwatch to simulate a ref’s whistle

1. Ground balls 

•  Do some Ground Balls forward from a won face off and then a set of GBs won backwards as a warm up.

1. Quick Chops

• Use a stopwatch and set up like you are going to take a faceoff

• Go  down then for 10 seconds  go back and forth over the ball as fast as you can without touching the ball.

1. Clamp down the line

• Set up 10-15 balls across the line with just enough room for you to fit in between and get set.  

• Start on one end and go down the line as fast as you can clamping the ball and toss it out forwards or backward quickly and then get to the next ball.

1. Fast Hands

• Set the ball up a equal distance from your hand as you would in a lacrosse faceoff

• Go down with no stick and have an alarm set for every 5 seconds and when the sound alarms grab the ball with your hand as fast as you can.  

• Put the ball back and wait for the alarm to go off again.

1. Clamps technique reinforcement

• practice trapping the ball with a clamp in sets. 

• Hold for a few seconds and try to really secure the ball practicing good form.

1. Simulated Faceoffs

• Using  an alarm system,  go off of it as fast as you would a normal face off at full speed using  an alarm system  using all the moves a few times each and recover the ball.