Ecological Lacrosse Podcast - Ep. 12 with Kent Denver Head Coach Mike O'Neil

Jamie Monroe here. I'm excited to introduce this new show called the Ecological Lacrosse Podcast. The goal of this podcast is to help coaches of all levels learn to apply modern skill acquisition concepts to their teams in a cutting edge.

but practical way. In this podcast, we will discuss lacrosse in the context of principles of play and through the lens of ecological dynamics and a constraints-led approach. I guarantee adopting an ecological approach to your coaching will not only help you win more games, but it will create the best possible experience for your players, and it will change your life. How's it going, everybody? Welcome back to the Ecological Lacrosse Podcast.

Today I'm really excited to talk about women's lacrosse with Mike O'Neill, who is the head coach at Kent Denver School, runs a girls club program called Concept. Mike and I go way back. He worked for me at 3D Lacrosse. We coached together at Mountain Vista. He was my defensive coordinator on the boys' side back in 2016 and 2017. And I also coached him with the MLL Atlanta Blaze, and he also played in the PLL. Mike was a four-year starter at Cornell.

Coach, a lot of men's across and kind of switched over to the women's side. And Mike, really fired up to have you on the podcast. That's all, Jamie. Fired up to be here. You're the second women's lacrosse podcast. I need to get more women's lacrosse content and find some people that are really interested in talking about ecological dynamics in the CLA.

But let's dive right in, Mike. How has the constraints-led approach impacted you and your coaching? And give us a little breakdown of how it's evolved. I mean, to say it really simply, it's... Completely transformed me as a coach. And I almost can't believe that I coached differently than this. You look back at it now and it's like so simple and it makes so much sense.

And it kind of frustrates me that I coached for so long without it. And it's just, it's re-energized me. It's made coaching and learning the game a lot more fun. And it's just been an incredible journey learning this and diving into it. And every day there's something new. It's never, it never stops. I know that's the best. Yeah. And the amount of conversations that we've had.

just about drills and constraints and um you know you think you think a drill or a game is done and then you jump on the phone you're like wait i got i got this new constraint i got this new adjustment i got this new tweak i know it's crazy yeah It is exhilarating to come up with a constraint that takes you down this completely new path of learning new things and seeing how the players react to it.

and how and how their behaviors change and uh the other night i came out to concept practice and we had maybe This happens like once a week, but I have like a new incredibly exciting drill constraint, which was how to teach hesitation moves with a one-on-one plus two stationary pickers.

I'd always kind of known – actually, I knew Andy Shea, the head men's lacrosse coach at Yale, does a lot of one-on-one plus a picker with a stationary pick where he makes the Dodgers really figure out how to use the pick. And you can see it. I got some really cool clips in my massive clip library of like Matt Brandow using hesitation moves to set up kind of a late reject or what I would call a reverse invite over the pick.

when i did it with your girls though i did it one on one plus one picker and it was it was just too hard for them to they were getting overplayed so much they just kind of had to reject and then i added a second picker and It gave them a two-way go. And then these girls were like hezzying like crazy. And they'd never done a hesitation move in their life before. It was insane. And the coolest part was, you know, we were...

briefly chatting about the practice plan and you, you hadn't planned for two pickers. I hadn't thought of it. You had not planned for it. And you know, you yelled down, you're like, Mike, add another picker. And it just, it changed everything. And talk about learning skills in a contextual environment where they're making decisions.

i mean i've never seen these girls hesitate that much yeah it's crazy i'm so excited to do it more um you are coaching so you got kent denver Girls lacrosse team. You graduated a ton of seniors last year. A bunch of Division I kids and Division III kids. Very young team. Can you talk about... how this team is progressing and how you would sort of attribute it to this methodology. Yeah. It's, it's been a really, it's been a really interesting, different.

different season than last year. You know, last year we had 61 seniors and we were, we were just focusing on winning and going as far as possible. You know, we definitely still. still lived by the constraints led approach and and all that. But there was definitely less sort of less development in a way. These girls were there, and we were just game planning and figuring out how to stay fresh and win. Now this year, we have two total seniors.

Four or five freshmen that play, five or six sophomores, a few juniors. And so going into the season, it was kind of like, let's see who can compete. how to teach them how to compete and just teaching them how to play in a lot of different environments. And so I think the coolest thing for me is, is. Putting these girls that have low game experience, not a lot of game experience, not a lot of high-level lacrosse experience in general, and just putting them in different...

As many different environments as possible with a lot of context to teach them how to play a high level high school game, you know, high variability drills, a lot of. Two man, three man, uneven, you know, big keep away, small keep away, just changing up our environments as much as possible to get them to get them ready for.

every single game situation. And you and I were chatting last night about our game one against Denver East. We lost 63. And it was pretty, it's pretty tough to watch that film. It's not good lacrosse. Yeah. And then you watch our game against Fairview from Tuesday this week, and it's a completely transformed team. Yeah. Remarkable, honestly.

It's been really fun and exciting and different to see these girls step up and learn. Yeah, it's very cool. One of the things that I want coaches to really think about... that you've done a great job with is when you combine constraints in variability where you're going to use a lot of constraints and you're going to change constraints a lot, not necessarily changing them just to change them kind of because you want variability, but changing them specifically.

to to get the behaviors you're looking for um but how much how much do you feel like the variability and the the constant use of and changing of constraints has helped your players become more adaptable in how to grow. Can't even put that. into can't even put that into words how important it is i think you and i were talking about a couple weeks ago at our pickup session um and i've been thinking a lot about variability recently um and

Coaches want to be successful as a coach. They want to go to a practice and do things that are going to make them feel good. And what's going to make them feel good is their players being comfortable and looking good and performing drills that they're comfortable with. And you leave a practice, you're like, that was a great practice, right? We did. We did things that we were successful. We scored goals. We played good defense. And it's really hard to get away from that.

I think the hardest part about variability is you put these kids and teams in environments that they're uncomfortable with and that they don't really know what to do with. And they have to work through the task and they have to work through the constraints. But if you buy into it and you change the environments frequently and over the course of weeks and months and years, they go onto the field and they're just like adaptable.

And they can handle any situation. And sometimes it might not seem like they're necessarily improving because they're not dominating one or two drills that you're comfortable with. But it's crazy. how much it's impacted. Even my Kent and Concept Girls in the last few months since you've been coming to practices, we haven't done, we have not done two of the same drills.

In 2025. Yeah. At a practice. Really? You haven't gone back to one? I mean, yeah, not two of the same in the same practice. We've changed it up so much. And it's been massive. All right. So when you're looking at...

You know, it's easier to go deep on your high school team because you get to coach them so much more and you're competing and everybody's practicing more and everybody's more organized and is more competitive than club in the sense that there's so much more practice time, team play and stuff like that. I want to talk a little bit about how you create, and you can use specifics on this, but how do you create practice plans and activities and the constraints that you use based on...

your evaluation of what your team is doing well or not well within the context of principles of play. That's been like the most fun part about being a coach is.

is getting creative with how you can teach teams and players to do things differently. Take the one-on-one plus pickers drill.

against valor we we scored one goal it was nine to one our defense played lights out we we gave up seven in the first half and two in the second half we competed really well so the score wasn't really reflective of of that game in my opinion but our our offense was struggling to to dodge against their physicality and they're they're really really awesome physical a couple division one defenders on that team and

After that game, I'm like, all right, how do we learn how to dodge? And immediately... i go back to the traditional old school style of like all right we got to teach you know we got to talk about footwork we got to teach them how to how to get a step and jump dodge and butt and you know i backtracked a little bit and and And then it was right around that time that we did that one-on-one plus pickers drill. And I'm like, that's how you do it. And so one way that's, yeah, that's one way.

And so anyway, thinking about the principles is really important. So you critique and review a game with these principles of play involved. And that could be, all right, we need to up our volume of actions. Or we need to pass more. We need to get the ball from wing to wing and side to side a little bit more. You know, we're not being deceptive enough.

And so for instance, we need to pass more principle. We look at, all right, how can we accomplish that in the course of a four on four or five on five or seven on seven in practice? And something that I know you do a lot and you just put out some content on this on the men's side is having different regional shot clocks. And having a shot clock reset for a swing. I went to a five-second shot clock in a seven-on-seven with a girls team a few weeks ago. Because I was...

They were really good. This team was really good. Moses Brown girls. Shout out to Bryant Williams. But a lot of these girls, you know, there's like eight or nine girls or something that they've played a lot with us, right? A lot of champions. They were so good that they could just score.

You know, so like having a set, I did a nine second shot clock on a side at first and it was just like, go, go, go, speed, feed, feed. And I, I wanted to try to get the ball moving. I wanted to get them, I wanted more off ball actions. I wanted the ball to swing more. I wanted them not to jam it.

as much. And then I was like, all right, five second shot clock. And I was like, I thought it was going to be, and I was asking him to do a repick, but they could do it. And all of a sudden the ball started moving incredibly fast. It was cool. I remember when I was frustrated, same exact thing. I was frustrated with our ability to run actions.

And move the ball. Right. That's a really tough thing to do. It's a tough thing to teach. It's like, Hey, we want to like set a bunch of on ball and off ball picks simultaneously and pass and try and score. And you get these players that might just like. dodge top side and beat a man-to-man defense and shoot and score. It's like we want to get deeper into the levels and getting that swing at shot clock. I actually did a below-the-elbow shot clock too. I know that's cool. I tried that.

Five seconds, and then you can get another three or four seconds if you kick it down to the nation's feeder. Exactly, because you don't really have that X element like the men's game. You had a reset if you got the ball through X. yeah um but you don't totally have that you could you could but it's not the same they don't play you back there the same way and then i brought the girls in and i was like how did that feel and they were all like

oh it was it was it felt pretty messy and it felt like it it didn't feel too clean and i watched it and i was like that was the best lacrosse we've ever played and they they didn't they didn't feel it because they were just thinking about accomplishing the task of getting a reset, but they scored goals. And although it might've felt kind of messy, they were running the principles based offense really, really well. And it was, it was cool to see.

That is cool. One thing in women's lacrosse that you find is that there are certain programs or coaches that are adamant that we don't want it. to pick for the ball because they believe from a principles of play perspective it goes against the principles of play of spacing and i want to address that on this podcast chat with you about it because

actually picks for the ball create better spacing. So if you have an isolation on one wing, there's six defenders guarding six players on the other elbow. And when they slide, if they have to slide. it's a big mess over there with five defenders guarding six. And when you bring another player over for a two-man game, now it leaves five players over there.

and four to guard five, which is still kind of a mess. And if you bring a third player over, then all of a sudden it's four on three over there when they slide. Now it's getting a lot cleaner. And if you have some... kind of player occupying at x your backside elbow might even be a three on two when they slide and now it's getting much much cleaner um and and it's just so important that everybody understand that

The spacing, and you see this in box across, that's why they pick so much in box across. You can't just clear space in box and go one-on-one. First of all, you got to get to the middle. Second of all, they won't even clear with you. You bring people together and it creates space on your side. So I just kind of wanted to make that statement and then talk a little bit about two-man game because the issue everybody has, I think, with why certain players wouldn't want somebody picking for them.

why a coach feels like it's bringing a double is because if you walk up, if you, if you run up and just stand there, then yeah, there's going to be a defender on the left and the right and a picker standing in the middle. And there really actually is nowhere to go. So figuring out how to slip, how to when to stick a pick, when to chip a defender on ball, when to slip a pick, how to create space.

A slip is kind of the ultimate clear through, right? You're getting really, really close there. And then you're out of there. And if they don't guard you, you're open. If they help and hedge. And if they do guard you, then the Dodgers going to have the ultimate amount of space with less help. Can you talk a little bit about how you try to develop these concepts with the constraints you like to use in your command games? Yeah, I mean...

I couldn't agree with you more with the spacing. I think one of my favorite things to do with a youth team, whether it's a four-on-four drill or a seven-on-seven drill, you get them... playing live and you talk about you know we're trying to set some picks if you get a two-point goal if you run a two-man game yada yada and then they run around like chickens with their heads cut off and you you pause them and then you partner them up

And you show them how much space there is when you get actions and two man going. I mean, it's insane. If you look at a seven on seven half field set.

with everyone solo with a couple girls cutting and and defenders everywhere there's i mean there's literally no space yeah and then if you if you partner up um and you get a three-man game and a couple two-man games it's it's crazy what it does to your spacing. Yeah. Um, and I love that. Yeah. And, and when you talk about offense, right. And we we've talked about this at length. It's like,

Any offense, you're trying to figure out how to get a two-on-one. And traditional offenses... How to create an advantage. Right, yeah. And traditional offenses use a dodge to draw a slide. Which, that... That works. We know that works. Yeah. Or cut. And we're just, we're saying that we're going to get more advantages.

and up the probability of a miscommunication or, you know, some sort of mistake from the defense by forcing them to communicate through an action with... two players close to each other and it's just a different and in our opinion simpler way to generate an advantage um by running picks and it's not Like you said, it's not necessarily always setting a pick and sticking it. It could be a fake pick backdoor. It could be a slip repick. It could be a slip repick slip again.

uh well and it could be reject i mean you know bottom line is you use the pick to right to gain the the benefit of Addition by subtraction. That means we're adding by subtraction defense. We're gaining by subtracting the defenders from the help. When I was coaching Thunder Ridge High School, I was coaching my daughter. That team played a ton of pickup and we had a bunch of good girls. We were kind of running a set that was like a pairs up top and three down low. It was before I really kind of...

went to two, three player sides. And what I found was these two girls were really creating a lot of advantages with their two-man game. An X player or a backside player would come in and slide to the pick and roll. And it was completely taking us out of our ability to feed the pick and roll and actually. even even dodge off of it because they were sliding over from like the ex-girl that that was all clumped down there that is why nations

which for people that don't know what that is, Nations is like a pick and roll, but it's a two pass pick and roll. So like if you pick for me, instead of me passing you, I pass it to a third player that passes to you. And in nations, when you bring a third player over to the side, you are essentially giving the ball to the player whose defender is going to jam up your pick and roll, as I was just explaining. In other words, if you have a...

X player on defense, an X player that's kind of away, and you've got two on one side and sort of five on the other, and they're going to send somebody over to jam up your pick and roll. The solution is bring that player whose girl is helping. and throw the ball to her during the pick and roll, the advantage still exists. And so nations, a lot of people think of it as like a play, but it's really more of a principle of play, of occupying, creating space. It's a spacing.

It's also like it occupies players. Nations basically eats up players away from the rest of the defense, so they can't help. They could send a fourth player over, but now our... our equation on the other side is much better when they sent a fourth player over. And now we've got four and three over there. And so in any case, I just kind of wanted to make a statement because it's really interesting. And it's, it's, it's this.

It's the same traditional dodge down the alley, draw a slide, move it through X and move it to the backside, right? It's just drawing an advantage and moving it twice. It's just our twice is moving it to the... third player on your side and they become the feeder it's yeah it's the same thing and it disables the defense from sliding to the roll right because she has to now guard the ball

So now another player would have to come over and do that, which is like, which is a huge advantage. So many people want to clear out. In other words, it comes really just comes back to this whole concept of addition by subtraction. The more you clear out, the more they can send defenders and guard a bigger mess. The more you pull players to the ball side with the right spacing and concepts, the more space it actually opens up.

And Jamie, I think that one of the coolest things that I've noticed with our Ken offense this year is, you know, the, the spacing of getting actions happening on the wings, right. Keeping the middle clear, but also. you've really been diving into off-ball repicking and being dangerous off-ball. And the amount of times that our lefties have been off-ball and they've been getting open.

just like ad nauseum, just getting open, getting open, getting open, but also occupying their defenders so that our righties can just walk in. Our righties have just been walking in the middle, no slide. and scoring really easy goals up against Thunder Ridge because our lefties are running such great actions. And I think the next level for us as a team against the Valor is to be able to...

work a ball side and feed the backside. Totally. Which is tough. It's so interesting because basically you could come back to like the whole point of offenses to create an advantage. Maybe it's an advantage where you have a step. on your defender. Maybe it's an advantage where you get two on one, meaning two defenders on one offensive player. Think about when you run ballside actions and backside actions.

Of which every one of those actions, you can create either a positional advantage of a step to the net or a two on one. If one person switches and one person stays, there's two on one. And so all of a sudden, how many of these actions could you be running? Let's just say in a 30 second possession, if you were running simultaneous actions, ball side and backside.

How many actions do you think you could reasonably, not even like potentially, but just kind of reasonably run? 20. Easy. 20 actions in 30 seconds. Of ball side and off ball side, I think if you looked at, yeah, you look at a club, we're running 15 to 20 at least. Yeah, so you figure you've got...

You know, with seven players, if there's three pairs of people working together and they could run an action every five seconds, that would be three actions every five seconds times six, that would be 18. I think reasonably you should be able to get two every five seconds for sure, which would be 12 potential advantages. Whereas if you watch a regular possession, it's like, how many advantages are we really getting?

A one-on-one cut could be a great thing. Obviously, we're going to teach that, but we're teaching more in the context of these two-man actions off-ball. And like you said, they occupy so much better because they actually have to guard it and communicate it. So that was just a topic that I thought was interesting. I want to dive into the repics a little bit though.

For everybody out there, repicking is kind of the cheat code for getting your girls to follow, and boys too, frankly, in men's cross, it's true also. But how to get them to... actually run really good, more dynamic pick actions. Can you explain why that, why you would think that if that's true? So what, what I think and love about repicks is you get a defense, you get two defenders to cover a two-man game and to work through an action.

And then from that action, let's say, you know, I'm picking for you and you cut hard to the net and then I pop and we're both looking for the ball. That defense is communicating, trying to stay ball side. trying to not let us get the ball and they're exerting mental and physical energy to cover that action. And once they do, there's always a, we covered it. Yeah. Like I, I,

I got ball side. I covered it. And then there's a relax. And then you, you're cutting to the net. You stop and come back for me. It's, it's kind of like, Oh crap. Like I got to do this again. Now there's space.

between you and your defender. I'm coming back to use you again. And what we always find is, especially in that scenario that I just drew up, you cut to the net, you come back for me. That's a little off-ball up-pick. you're going to generate a switch. Your, your defender is going to switch to me if I cut harder than that and you're going to be open. And if you don't switch, I'm wide open on a, on a backdoor up pick and just that, that secondary.

that secondary coverage is really challenging for the defense, especially when it happens at speed. I mean, what's harder to guard, a dodge or a re-dodge? Right. Anytime you stack actions, it's harder. It also really digs into the principles of play regarding two-man game and the principles of making it work.

have to do with reading coverages. You have to play pretty close to your defender if you're the dodger or the cutter. I mean, if you're... girls at the eight and you're at the 12 and you're going to try to run a two-man game it's you're just too far away it's easy for them to see it and communicate it there's real principles involved with the picking element of triple a ratings meaning if you set a very slow

stagnant, predictable pick. It's just easier for that, as you just mentioned, for that defender to guard that coverage. And so repicks actually will teach your girls how to... do these really important fundamentals of two-man game, these concepts naturally. And I want to make sure that everybody knows exactly what it is. And you can imagine you do a pass down, pick down to somebody.

and you go down like you're going to set the pick. You could stick it or slip it, but you're going to roll to the net while that Dodger attacks high. You know, that's one of the big keys is that when you attack with the ball, the re-pick involves...

another pick but it also involves another dodge and so you know to be able to attack get your defender you know to guard you and then and then it gives you this little ability to step back and they're automatically squared up and nice and close to them like even Even I see some women's players and girls players that haven't done a ton of two-man game and they struggle with one pick because they're not good at engaging two defenders.

If they just run hard and step back, they're in perfect position for this picker to come back for them. And like you said, it just creates total havoc. But it kind of nails some of the most important things that we try to teach all the time.

of essentially learning how to engage two defenders, how to engage your own defender. It's so hard. And usually they have a hard time with that because they just stand in one place too long and then they can't get a step. And it gives you a better chance to get a step and all that.

Yeah. They're not just waiting for the pick. The amount of times that I used to say this in box practice, wait for the pick, wait for the pick, wait for the, it's the worst thing you can do. It is. It's the worst thing you can do. You know, it's counterintuitive, but. you actually want to make your move before the pick is actually set, right? You know, you can't go away before, but you want to sort of get a step on your defender.

before the pick is actually set. Because once it's set, you're not going to really get that good of a step. They just jack you or late switch it and they just grab the girl that's picking. And so it's not dynamic enough. It needs to be more dynamic. And... You know, like teaching repicks is really fun, but once you get good at it, it's, you don't have to repick. And if you.

If you come to me and slip and then I dot, like my mentality is I'm going to the net. I'm dot. I'm going to beat my man. And if I beat my man, we're in, we got a two on one. I don't need a repick, but. If I don't, which happens a lot, right? Because a good defender is going to generally guard your first dodge. Then I still made him work because I was trying to get to the net. Then I stepped back. You see, I need it.

You come back for it, and then that defender is going to be in tough shape to guard that re-dodge and re-pick. Yeah, no doubt. And honestly, for coaches, where you're probably going to have to initiate with – you also have to initiate your offense more with a re-pick.

then it's out of a good flow. If the ball swings over really quick and you kick it down and you can kind of like catch a defense in an approach, you probably aren't going to need to repick. It's the same in men's lacrosse too.

The ideal time to run a two-man game is when the defender is approaching and late and not having time. But when... you're kind of initiating a first action is where you're you're probably going to need your re-pick and where if the ball moves really quickly you can probably just set one and be able to use it um hey how do you teach your girls whether to

stick a pick or slip a pick? And how do you teach that read? Because I think that's so important. I think there's a couple ways. I think what I love to... to do first is just teach them to be dynamic and dangerous and um and just think about triple a ratings which is always arrive alone and and getting a lot of, you know, the old school term of like staircase dodging in and out staircase off ball, you know, it's like slip, come back, repick. And so getting them to, to,

to play faster and dynamically just thinking about how to, how to beat their man, whether they have the ball or not. Another, another really awesome way to actually teach reads. is just getting the offense to communicate to the defense, stay and switch, and using that sort of... offensive joystick communication. And I'm sure you've talked about it, but it's just, if you and I are running a two-man game, we get to tell the defense to switch or stay.

That's really fundamentally the best way to contextually teach a player how to take advantage of a coverage. and learn when to slip and when to stick it. I also love, I've been doing a lot more of this, mandating specific coverages for the defense to play. So if we're running an all-even four-on-four, telling the defense that they have to pressure and go over picks. Yep.

is a really, really good way to teach girls how to stick picks and look for their give and go and slow down and all that stuff. I agree. It's so key because the best teams that you go against, the most athletic. teams that play man-to-man defense are going to pressure, try to push over the pick. If they run into the pick, A, it might be a block, and B,

If it's not, they're just going to switch it. And it's like, you know, they're just running right into the person they want to cover. And then, you know, the picker's defender is just sitting there waiting. This element of the... pressure over late switch and for teams that like to slip a lot a slip does nothing to that ball pressure so it just it puts you in where you're not getting a step and if you stick the pick you know it takes more sort of a surgical approach to dodging

which is really why I was thinking so much about the one-on-one plus the two station. That was why we were doing that, was to try to teach the girls how to – how can I – use this pick and not run my defender into the pick. This is another reason why a lot of coaches don't like sticking a pick because they feel like it's going to be called. And it definitely can be.

But if your Dodgers know what they're doing, and this is so counter to what everyone gets taught. You're not trying to run shoulder to shoulder off the picker. If you do, you will run your defender into the pick.

What you got to do is get outside of it a little bit and bait them to think they can go over and then use those hezzies we were talking about to be able to turn the corner, which allows you to be either all the way in. Or if the picker's defender steps up, you've got a nice two-on-one. That's high level, but that is what.

People like if they understand these principles of play, they can then work on them and look for them and the girls can do it. I mean, it was amazing to watch in that one session that we did last week. And it's so funny to.

to you know when you get pressure you you know you get to like fight or flight mode and you just want to run really fast when you get pressure and that's what you've been told right yeah someone's pressuring you move your feet run run run and yes sure that's that's good sometimes um

It takes you out of your offense, and that's the thing. So then all of a sudden all you're doing is running around full speed, and then they can't see anything, can't use anything. I've been thinking about that a lot. about how to break pressure and how to run your offense. I feel like against a pressure team, you need to be able to run your offense inside the 12 and to be able to square up. And you got to like work on.

You know, getting tons of pressure and working your way into the 12 where you can square up and be able to run these two-man and three-man actions and run your repicks. And you're going to have to stick picks in order to do that. You know what I've been thinking as a constraint for that is make the constraint, make them switch and make them switch back. And you have to run it in the 12. You got to figure out how to run your actions in the 12.

And you have to make them switch and you have to make them switch back. Interesting. So is that with, in terms of a repick or just anyway? It could be a re it kind of is. Yeah. The picker might not move that much. They might like stick it the first time and then let, let you use it again. Or, you know, but either way.

In order to make them – to be able to make a defense switch that doesn't want to, that wants to get over is great. But if you just do that, you're just going to run right into the next one-on-one. But when you come back to it –

you've now got two defenders engaged. That's where you get the nations. And that's where you can basically get the picker out of there in the middle of the switchback. The picker gets out of there and she's either open or one player, you know, there's four scenarios that can occur.

Either both players go with the picker, both players stay on the ball, or one player on either side goes with the picker. And whatever side they go, you can attack that side because they're playing sides now. And that's where... The whole idea of having a – we talked about this before. When you just stand there and there's a girl on the left and a girl on the right and a picker in the middle, there's nowhere to go. But when that picker exits, you all of a sudden –

It's like they're bookending it. And all of a sudden, like one of the bookends is gone and you attack that side. Yeah, because the most frustrating coverage is the on-ball high pressure and the soft. Yeah. off-ball defender that's going to switch and you don't have space for the roll or it's too late because you stuck the pick. And that's where the secondary pick comes in because then they're forced to play sides. You can make sure they get in the 12.

It's going to be more – they can't sag off quite as far and obviously the picker is going to be closer to the eight so that she'll be able to be more easily getting open. But yeah, so I've been thinking a lot about that. Because this is what you're going to face if you're going to kind of run these offenses. Hey, I got a question for you. How do you feel like running these two-man and three-man and four-man type of actions? How does it work?

against zone how does it develop your players to be good against the zone well i think the the constraints that approach and Principles-based offense in general teaches you how to play in any offense because you're learning how to read defenses, you're learning spacing, you're learning how to pass. But it's really the same principles against zone with just a couple different tweaks. You know, it's very similar to playing sides and switching.

You know, you're going to do a little bit more lateral movement with the ball, like carrying and dragging, trying to pull players to the edge of their zone. get a little bit of a – I don't like to say dummy two-man, but a little bit of like I'm running a two-man action. I'm bringing two players to the edge of their zone, and then we're going to exit and slip and move the ball. So –

It's really similar with just a couple different tweaks of carrying defenders to the edge of their zone, throwing back and continuing to do that a couple times has been huge for us. Huge. And then like what's been. really fun and awesome is is getting your carries we've been really carrying with our righty side because our righties are our four-man side we've been carrying and throwing back carrying and throwing back looking for our little slip nations which sometimes is there but if you do that

A couple of times, you're going to have five defenders to your four, right? Because you've drawn the rover and getting an up and over skip pass. um on that carry where you know you look back and then you skip it to the other side and then you're just beating the dominoes um you know you got you got some three on twos and two on ones over there

So I love going against the zone. It's so fun. And it's fun for the players too. That throwback you're talking about is so key. And that's when you carry up. and pull the elbow defender out of her zone, there becomes a big gap between the elbow defender and the base defender. And if you can pull that gap with a player and throw back to it, which is the same throwback we're doing a lot in arm.

Man-to-man, three-man action, pass down, pick down, throw it back to that low feeder. It's really the same pass. And it's a great pass. And it's the best feeding angle. You know, back to the nation's look. I mean, why do we want to get it down there? Well, it's a way better feeding angle than the Dodger has. When you get the ball low, the ultimate feeding angle on the field is down near the crease in the goal line. And so that's what you kind of get.

And then if you can sort of throw it back to that girl, she can attack that gap or the base defender has to rotate up. And if the base defender rotates up and you sneak an X girl, so imagine you carry the elbow up, big gap between the elbow and base. throw it back to a girl that's in that gap, if they rotate to it, then the ex-girl can sneak. And now their other base defender has to slide over. I talked about this with Tim McCormick.

In the preseason on this podcast where we were talking about a constraint of just getting, challenging your team, tasking them to get the backside base defender to have to rotate. We did that in the Kent gym. That's right. Yeah, we did. One interesting thing about zone two is that you... The whole reason why we're bringing two players together, like we talked about, is spacing in addition by subtraction and man-to-man. But in zone, you can pick all you want, but you don't need a pick.

to be able to get two on one because anytime you carry the ball again elbow girl carries it towards the next top girl they're going to pass her off you talked about stretching her to the edge of your zone but the other it's called a pass off right and There's a moment in time where if you can hover in that area, you can have two on you. If you have a picker there, you can do it too, but now it's two on two, whereas it's a two on one.

two defenders on one offensive player, if you don't pick it. And so all of a sudden, maybe the girl that was going to pick cuts and the rover picks her up. And now you've got that big gap again. And, you know, it's so. It really does. The rotations, the cycling, the throwbacks, the reads, the vision, all of the constraints. It is really simple because a lot of people will be like, yeah, well, if I run this offense, how does it work against zone? Basically, it works the skill set.

translates really, really well. It's actually pretty funny too. You can get some crazy good advantages four against five if you run it well. Like even on the righty side. So let's say they put you, the defense has a girl advantage over there. If you're carrying and throwing back and, and slipping and essentially you're going to have. a nation's cut or the, the, the first cut, and then you'll have a kind of delayed cut or almost the give and go cut.

And you can score goals not even involving that backside if you run a really good four-man action. It's pretty cool. No doubt. And obviously with all the... Kicks and slips and seals that you're running in your regular man-to-man offense on the backside are going to happen. It's a natural cycling action. And so, yeah, think about it. If they have to rotate a base girl across.

and you've got the backer or rover occupied with one of your players, the backside, it's three on two over there. They're going to be able to get open on a cut. And we've had some really sick. wall pass actions against zones. Getting it inside and getting it to the backside pipe and vice versa. That's also been a sweet little look for us. Yeah, that is an awesome look.

I want to switch gears and talk a little bit about concept. So, Mike, you've got to be the only club in the world, in women's lacrosse, girls lacrosse, that has an ecological approach. where everything you're doing is CLA. Talk about that in terms of, we've already talked about the power of it and how excited we are and all that. First of all, you're developing some really good players for people out there.

don't know that your 28 team is going to be one of the better teams in the country. And these girls have been training this way for a long time and their skill set is pretty off the charts. I mean, the things that these girls know how to do will, will blow people's minds. I mean, whether it's just, you know, just all the.

variability in their game their ability to read coverages to pass so to pass to be deceptive it's amazing but my question to you is how challenging has it been and how have you attacked trying to get this across your whole club with your coaches in that it is different. And then once you started getting them going this direction, how much has it improved the coaching of the individuals?

Good questions. I think, first of all, you, you, you got to learn it yourself and be able to talk about it. But then if you, if you buy in and have a plan, and write some practice plans and quality control and show up and do it. Coaches see how fun and awesome it is. And I've...

I don't want to say never. I don't know because I've had a lot of coaches come in and out and get on field and interact with a lot of coaches. But I can't remember a time that a coach was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, this sucks. Or like, what are we doing here? You know, it's only been fun. And I think what's really contagious is the kids have a blast. When the kids are having a blast, it's really easy to coach them.

And the CLA actually makes coaching easier. I agree. You have to talk less. And that's one thing that's been really interesting for me and someone that... has known me when I took over the girl's side at 3D in 2017, I was a massive joy sticker and just talking so much. And, you know, I'm at practice. I'm oftentimes just watching and seeing what. constraints we need to adjust. So anyway, coaching's easier. It's more fun. The players love it. And I think just really

educating and talking with coaches on the field has, has been the biggest thing for me explaining the why. And it's like, okay, you know, Jamie, like we're, we're doing this. this three on two drill and here's our task and here's our constraint and then let them play and and just watch the drill and then you know come back to them in 10 minutes and be like what's what's going well and what's not going well and maybe they're

You know, they're saying, all right, well, this fourth grade team is dodging too much. And it's like, OK, well, let's make a constraint to get them to pass a little bit more. You know, whether I call it a hot potato, you know, you have you have four seconds to shoot or pass. Or rewarding an assisted goal, anything like that. So just educating coaches on the field with why we're doing things and how we're doing it. Because...

A lot of coaches will go back to, myself included, they'll just go back to their traditional ways of talking too much and mandating or trying to script things. So I've...

I found it really, really successful. All the coaches I've had love it. It's been a lot of, it's been really fun for us. The girls have been loving it. And then I was not concerned. I was... unsure of how this approach was going to work with my youngest teams right you and i you and i have been training players on this for for a while and the 28 started doing it They really started diving into the CLA in seventh grade, I think, maybe even a little after. And I had this third, fourth grade team.

And we got this team in October of 24. And, you know, I was like, we're definitely doing the CLA, but how is it going to go with these girls that can't pass and catch? And they don't know how to compete. They don't know how to play. Shout out to coach Amy, her daughters. She's got a 28 daughter and a 30 daughter. And she... She crushed it with this team and they went from having no idea how to run a three on two keep away and, and, you know, run two and game and, and all this. And they are.

crushing spring lacrosse right now. The amount of feedback that these parents are giving me, like our girls are so skilled and so fun to watch and playing such high level lacrosse. We can't believe how far they've come in six months.

Um, so anyway, it's, it's been really successful and just a lot of fun. So with it, with it, with a group that can't throw and catch, what do you do? Like, how do you get them? How do they learn how to throw and catch first of all? And what kind of activities are you doing? Other than teaching them how to throw and catch and just wrecking out pure throwing and catch. Yeah. And, you know, you and I have talked about this at length. We do some at speed.

you know, two VO passing where we're, we're running fast and passing and catching because hand-eye coordination is, you know, you got to learn a little bit of it, but the amount of three on two keep away and two on one keep away that we did in the fall was insane. The ball was on the ground a lot, but the simple thing is the ball is going to be on the ground when they play a game. So figure out how to get them competing and it's okay if the ball is on the ground, you know, go scoop it up.

come back and keep going. And, you know, just finding some small sided competition, two on one, three on two, two on two, three on three. I think. The most we would get up to is five on five. And that was pretty rare. And teaching the fundamentals of rotations and drawn dump and spacing and, you know. giving goes or just setting an action, right? Really, really simple CLA principles based lacrosse stuff. And it just, they, they, they started getting it.

And they started improving. And now they're throwing BTBs and around the world and pump fake. Like, no joke. They're doing all of it. So... I think it's just sticking with the small-sidedness. And that's the toughest thing that parents can't get a grip on. They're like, Coach, we're doing this full-field stuff.

in tournaments and we're running seven on seven for our fifth graders like we got to be doing seven on seven plays and we have to be doing 12 on 12 riding and clearing it's like no you don't you know you don't just chip not now chip away at the chip away at the small sided and it's going to show up and and we're going to get there and it's working you talked about you do some stick work without the context of offense and defense and it tends to be

on the run, at speed, kind of like two-man passing. Not partner passing where you're standing there, but partner passing where you're on the run. Because they're... it does require coordination and throwing catching on the run is important. And you can also bang that out pretty quickly. And obviously you can spread them farther apart. So they have to throw a longer pass on the run or whatever, but what percentage of your practice, you know, would you do that?

versus making it contextual and more CLA. Whereas the partner passing is a little bit more differential learning, and I love it. I think you can do it. But for coaches out there that have a young team, what 10 minutes? 10 minutes at most 10 minutes of practice or something. Yeah. At most. And like, you know, sometimes I'll like five minutes before practice, I'll bring in the girls and I'll be like, Hey, just partner up really quick and get a ball. And I'll.

especially for my younger teams, like showing a player how to perform a behind the back, you know, with your lever action and, and like the actual movement of a BTB. Yeah. What it looks like. That's valuable to show it for two minutes. Right. But to wrap it out every day for, for 20 minutes is pointless.

It's like, all right, Hey Jamie, this is what we want with our little lever, you know, do it for two minutes and all right, we're going to stretch it up and we're going to go to three on two keep away. Um, we, I actually, the other day in a, in a, I think it was a fifth through eighth practice. We did two VO passing and we had a bunch of, we had three or four floating Rover defenders over the course of the field. Oh yeah.

How was that? So it was actually pretty fun. It was sweet. So the girls are running down the field trying to complete passes back and forth with their partner and random defenders are coming in the way and putting their stick up and jumping up and down and going to pressure you. And so, you know, just trying to find ways to run contextual stick work. And also, you can use some constraints. I think it's pretty interesting to use constraints within your stick work to try to.

elicit new you know new techniques such as like you're talking about a lever pass for people out there a lever pass is is sort of a no follow through pass it's a very deceptive pass It allows you to sort of pop it out of your stick. And explaining it is kind of hard. But if you basically have the girls play like a keep away and just say, all right, you're. Your top hand has to be on the plastic for every single pass. Right.

It literally will teach them how to throw in a different way and pop that ball out, which is something you would do in a little pick and roll. And to be something that you want to do sort of deceptively, you're going to try to feed it inside. This is a very deceptive way to feed. And the more we can think of constraints, if you're really struggling on throwing the ball hard.

and you're, say, doing a two-man passing drill, and you've got the girls spread out by, say, 15 or 20 yards, you can just say, hands high. You know, if they lift their hands up, the ball is going to go higher. You know what I mean? A lot of times they have a hard time throwing the ball that far, you know. And you could also, like a lot of coaches, you know, might say switch hands.

on there you know always have your stick ahead of you so if if you know you're always throwing it kind of across your body but but if you have your stick to the inside it it it forces a different way of throwing also so if you have like two righties running up the field if you're looking at them running away from you the one on the left is right-handed she has to open her body up to the inside whereas the girl traditionally on the on the right just sort of

nice and easy throws it across her body. But in the point is there are some ways instead of trying to explain a skill that you can use some constraints and use some metaphors of. Just like, you know, a goal of just getting your hands high. You get your hands high, you're going to throw it in the air more than low. I mean, for example, I've never thought about hand on the plastic. I've never done that before.

But it's like, that's awesome. That's a great way to teach a lover. For a young team, what I love... um i do this i have a little concepts cubs program like k like pre-k k and and first graders and you know you want to teach them how to throw underhand or off their hip and it's really really hard

If you've ever tried to teach a player that doesn't know how to throw an underhand pass to throw an underhand pass, it's like virtually impossible. But you just get them 20 yards apart and you say, roll it as hard, as fast as you can. You know, just like worm burning. And they start hucking, you know, sidearm underhand passes, but it's on the ground, so it's easier to do. And then you're teaching ground balls.

You know, there's, there's really fun ways to do that. And then going back to a couple of weeks ago at Kent, I wanted to do crank passing and I was doing two VO crank passing, no defense, no context. And you're like, dude, why don't we just do two on one times two? So there's two offense, one defense on one side, and you have that 20 yards away on the other side. And so you have one defender in between two offensive players, and it was just so much better.

to teach the skill of throwing it hard, but you're also adding some deception. Yeah. The last thing I'm going to leave with that might be the most important. constraint, I think, for women's lacrosse, especially for younger, less experienced kids, but even for experienced players, is boys' sticks, tennis balls, small nets.

Massive. First of all, you can't really catch and throw. If you can't catch, it's so hard to do with a girl's stick. You use a boy's stick and a tennis ball, they can all catch. They'll start to actually play the game. You want to learn how to swing underhand? use a boy stick you'll get a feel for it they can do it there's there's more pocket why do you think like the average like pretty good

sixth or seventh grade boy can like rip on her hand shots, but the same age girl doesn't. It's because of the stick. It's not that they're better athletes or they've put more time in or whatever. You know, it's just literally this dick gives you so many more release points and flexibility.

The tennis ball then allows you to play on a small net. And the small net is obviously massively important because it allows you to play small sided games and retain the integrity of teamwork. You can't just dodge it in a three on two. Your average good athlete can just dodge right to the net every single time. not with a three and a half by three and a half net. So how much do you do that? Oh my God. I carry 30. I have a stick bag in my car.

that has boy sticks in it and i'd carry them around um uh our every wednesday night third through third through 10th is boy sticks tennis walls Um, that's year round, year round. And they, they love it. Um, and then any, I tell this to any rec coach, anyone fifth grade and below. you're allowed to I think fourth and below you're allowed to use a boy stick in girls lacrosse really and you are I don't know exactly what the cutoff is but there's a it's around second to fourth grade and I

If I was coaching a third grade team, they would all be using boy sticks. No doubt. It's just, it's, it's how you learn. One of the best, I mean, Lucy was a, Lucy was, your daughter was a product of this, but one of the best players I think in the state. rock cat on thunder ridge she played boys lacrosse until eighth grade or ninth grade boys only no girls yeah you can tell yeah um so it's it's massive it's huge yeah

Awesome stuff, Mike. Well, listen, thanks for coming on, man. I love talking lacrosse with you. We get to do it a lot. I'm really fired up. Good luck down the stretch with Kent Denver. I'm really fired up to be helping out with concept and getting to get out there on the field. It's like a laboratory every time. It's exciting. I love talking lacrosse with you. Right back at you, Jamie. Thanks for having me. All right, brother. See you soon. We'll be in touch. Yep.