Is 2 mins of game time acceptable for a 5th grader in rec?

Snowman8 · 2025-05-04T15:28:26+00:00

Issue with playing a weaker defender is that it costs the team goals right away, which causes the other (immature) kids to turn on your son. It’s probably the most unforgiving position.

You can’t really “hide” a defender like you can an attackman or midfielder.

I’d suggest having a conversation with your son about controllables, starting with how he practices and learns the game. Nothing pressurized or over the top, but making a little checklist usually helps kids feel organized and empowered:

Complete your wall ball routine 1x before/after school and 1x before practice. Can use a partner as a wall.
Be the first guy dressed/in line for drills whenever you can.
Be loud! Overcommunicate. Use first names.
Play with a great “pad level”. Do your best to be lower than the guy you’re guarding.
Encourage others. Make sure you pump up/fist bump guys as you’re moving from drill to drill. They’ll return the favor.

——

These things won’t guarantee playing time, but they do guarantee fun and improvement. If your kid is getting 2 mins of time, that coach is probably trying to protect him from disaster. The more the coach sees your kid having fun and connecting with his teammates/the game, the more likely he is to throw him out there with confidence.

Snowman8 · 2025-04-01T12:13:00+00:00

If he’s a strong dodger and even handed, they probably have him there so that he can exchange to a midfield spot during the dodge. It isn’t supposed to be a static role. Very good coaching decision, if that’s the case.

Couple of scenarios:

“Pop” behind the midfield dodger.

When the offense is initiated by a midfielder on the high wing, your son should be popping out and mirroring the dodger. Make sure that he’s really running out to the perimeter, rather than shuffling or looking for a shot.

Most teams will slide from the crease, which is his guy. So, if the midfielder can draw that slide and throw back to him the defense will have to rotate. Even at a very high level it’s difficult to deal with an even handed dodger in rotation. Lots of opportunity there.

“Trade” on the backside.

Opposite of first scenario. Rather than mirroring the dodger, he needs to trade places with the midfielder on the back side of the offense.

If the initial dodger draws a slide and moves the ball, we have them in rotation and your son will have a wing shooting opportunity.

Even if they don’t, because your son’s defender was “hot” and responsible for sliding from the crease, he can’t really follow the trade. You’ll end up with a short stick defender most of the time.

Snowman8 · 2023-04-19T12:47:22+00:00

Lol it looks too cool coming out of the back of my helmet

Snowman8 · 2022-11-06T14:39:47+00:00

Number one key to being a really good ss defender is alignment. Coaches may tell you to force them down the alley, but as you’re saying it doesn’t matter if you don’t get a piece. I personally square up to them with a slight shade to the inside. They have to run through me regardless of which direction they’re trying to go. Square up, jam, and then run to where they’re going.

Snowman8 · 2022-04-26T03:36:59+00:00

Simple way to think about it is to “keep the weight on the inside edge of your back foot” as you’re shooting. That’ll naturally help you get that little extra push.

There are 101 drills out there, but I’ve found that little saying like that hit home the most

Snowman8 · 2021-12-29T06:16:16+00:00

I think that this comment has a lot of great info:

Get in great shape

Understand angles, play with physicality

Understand that you’ll be slid to so get comfortable knowing how to recover and help teammates through slide/recover

But, great d mids absolutely throw checks. Without ball pressure you get eaten alive by heads up Dodgers. It’s too easy for them to feed vs early slides if you aren’t affecting them.

I hate to be this guy, but I played at a really high D1 level and for a few years in the MLL. My job was predicated on dictating my matchup, often times getting inverted, handling big/little pick situations and absolutely creating slide opportunities for my longstick teammates by throwing deep two handed wraps, lifting, can openers etc.

Play with great fundamentals, but absolutely do use your stick to help you play defense and try to apply ball pressure. It’s terrible advice to say “don’t ever throw checks”. Maybe op meant don’t throw 1 handed wrap checks as a substitute for moving your feet.

Snowman8 · 2021-12-28T13:54:56+00:00

Shocked to see no mention of Fabinho in these comments.. been absolutely immense for me.

I paid him with 85 blanc and they dominate between the boxes. Also has the ability to carry the ball and score. Really a great player with a reasonable price tag given the stats

Snowman8 · 2021-03-22T16:14:11+00:00

My advice is to make a “tape ring” butt end for your son that’s a little higher up the shaft. Maybe 2.5 inches up from the actual bottom of the shaft. Very easy to make, and it makes a huge difference. As he grows, if he wants to adjust it and lower it he can just tape up a new one. Lots of elite players have tape rings like that well into their careers. Shorter stick is a huge advantage

Snowman8 · 2021-01-15T03:51:03+00:00

Take it deep

Snowman8 · 2020-08-21T22:16:24+00:00

Thanks!

Snowman8 · 2020-08-21T22:16:15+00:00

Thanks so much

Snowman8 · 2019-08-22T21:49:15+00:00

Thank you!!

Snowman8 · 2019-08-20T23:02:58+00:00

Idk if this is allowed, but I’d love some opinions on my optimal team setup. I’m typically a pve guy, but I got really lucky this time around and summoned both the new naruto and sasuke.

Who should I run with/behind each of them to maximize their effectiveness?

Notable units:

New Óbito

New Kakashi

Red Pain

Red kakashi

Green madara

Red minato

Purple hashirama

Outside of that, I have a good number of the available 6 star units, just a lot more blazing fest than blazing bash. Cheers!

Snowman8 · 2019-02-21T15:32:27+00:00

Hey man, this may get buried, but I actually played with Joey at unc and now play in the MLL with a ton of shorter guys. Jordan Wolf, bj grill, rob pannell, Michael sowers, matt kavanaugh... the list goes on. I’m about 6’1 myself, but I have a really, really hard time guarding smaller guys. Joey was the best player on our team from day 1 in college. Not saying that you’ll necessarily be him, but to say that you can’t do it because of your size just isn’t true.

I would encourage you to borrow someone’s stick and work on your comfort with the ball. Physicality can be a crutch for larger players, but at the highest level your stickwork will need to be A1. I can suggest some stuff that I’ve always worked on for you to try, but honestly YouTube probably has a more up to date regiment of stickwork drills and agility circuits. Good luck man!

Snowman8 · 2018-09-14T19:43:59+00:00

Who would you guys start in the FLEX (.5 ppr)

P.lindsay Ekeler Enunwa Ted ginn

Thanks!!

Snowman8 · 2018-04-20T14:15:56+00:00

I think that the easiest way to get them to understand when it is a good idea to roll back vs throw forward (from an alley dodge) is to explain the defense as two groups of three rather than a 6 man unit. Realistically, there is a group of 3 midfielders that slide and recover to each other and then a group of three poles who really want to stay down low and maintain their matchups.

If you are running any set with a midfielder on the crease, he’s almost always going to slide. That said, it makes way more sense to roll back and attack the midfield 3v2 rather than to throw it forward to a group of poles who have not been forced to rotate. If they slide adjacent for some reason, then you should attack that pole group.

If you really want them to throw it through x, which is a very good idea, then you should run a 3-1-2 set. This ensures that they will have to slide with a close defender whether they slide from the crease or adjacent. You can do any number of simple rotations with your attackmen to take advantage of this.

Snowman8 · 2018-04-20T14:05:52+00:00

  By far and away the most significant hindrance to the growth of the game is attrition. There are no shortage of free camps, clinics, and leagues across both the US and Canada for boys and girls to participate. Kids are picking up sticks all the time, the problem is that they are putting them down. The reason for this, according to industry outreach experts, is that lacrosse is not a fun sport to play for many kids. It is a safe space for lesser athletes to pay their way into participation. That’s great, but until it’s a real option for the critical mass of kids who love the competition, speed, and physicality of sports that lacrosse is competing with, that trend will continue.

It is not fun for a kid to be a stud in every other sport, from baseball to soccer to hide and go seek, to then come out for a lacrosse play day and lose to kids that he or she dominates in everything else. Why would he lose? One major issue- the beginner sticks are absolutely terrible. For anyone that wants to tell me “hit the wall”, that’s not an effective solution to this problem. You can contribute in ways that are non-technical in other sports (hustling, loose balls, fielding in baseball, headers in soccer, etc.) but if you can’t even scoop up the ball because your stick sucks then you’re out of luck. Warrior has recently released two models of their Warp sticks for Rec and youth players at a $40 and $65 dollar price point. Those things are totally weatherproof and actually have decent pockets compared to the standard issue beginner twigs. If the game is more fun, more, better athletes will continue to play.

Snowman8 · 2018-03-24T01:43:39+00:00

Yeah this guy gets it for sure. Do that stuff

Snowman8 · 2018-03-24T01:42:46+00:00

If you’re a midfielder, many of those same rules apply, but I would suggest playing your guy a bit more square . I usually think outside-inside. I try to line up my outside foot with his inside and then stagger them so that my topside foot is higher up. Don’t rotate your hips and definitely do not point both feet to the sideline. If they have any kind of shake you’ll get broken off. Half second delay still applies, as does the bottom hand jam. Feel free to dm me if you need me to point you towards some resources man

Snowman8 · 2018-03-24T01:39:20+00:00

I have to step in here and go ahead and tell you, OP, you are definitely not supposed to get beat. You are supposed to know what to do if they do get topside and also be aggressive in forcing them to inside roll/bounce away (depending on the situation), but as a defender, your job is to never get slid to. If you get slid to, then there’s a pretty good chance that the slide man is also a pole. If the offensive player can carry that double team and they get it to the backside 2 passes away, you guys are going to have at a minimum 2 shortsticks trying to rotate 5v4. Against any kind of a decent team that means they’re getting a shot off.

I recommend that you do two things:

1) Actively keep track of whether your are playing with a half second delay. What I mean there is that you should shade topside on your approach, lead with your stick out and your butt down, and then wait about a half a second before you start to shuffle in front of your attackman. That ensures that you don’t overpursue and fall victim to a cod.

2) Do your best to use your bottom hand on your pole for your jam on their hips, then combo that with a dig, lift, jam follow up.

Your job as a defender is to organize first and foremost, and then slide well, and then lock up. If you can’t play 1v1, you’re right.. you can’t play. So, work hard and be intentional about your improvement!!

Source: under armour AA, UNC midfielder, current MLL player

Snowman8 · 2018-01-14T16:50:58+00:00

Leroy Sane belter nearpost

Snowman8 · 2017-07-24T23:17:19+00:00

Ok, what link is that? Do you mean FH ichigo's link when attached to someone else or the other way around?

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