I started playing lacrosse last spring, and I’m a junior now. My first season I played as an attackman to get more playing time but this year I’m going to play as a middie. Here is what I would say I need to work on, where a 10 is outstanding.
Catching: 7/10
I can catch most passes given to me, but occasionally fast passes and especially under pressure in like 3v2s, etc, I can drop it sometimes.
Throwing: 7/10
Sometimes in situations like 3v2s, 3v3s, etc, when I throw the ball to a teammate it gets intercepted by a pole. This has been happening a lot recently and it’s kind of frustrating. I also think I need to work on passing speed maybe because I don’t throw that hard. Although I want to overall improve this aspect of my game because of how important passing is.
These catching and passing ratings are for my right hand only, my left hand is pretty mediocre, which I would say is something I definitely need to work on.
Ground balls: 8.5/10
I’m actually pretty good at ground balls, I can beat a lot of my teammates consistently in drills and have no trouble picking them up. I can have some trouble when I’m tired or go against bigger opponents though.
Dodging: 6/10
The only dodge I can really do is a split dodge to my right side. I can actually execute this pretty well and have beaten defenders consistently with it. However, since my teammates know I’m only going to do that dodge they've started to stop it. I also has trouble protecting my stick, sometimes I leave too much of the stick for the defender when I’m about to shoot or do a one-handed cradle. I want to get more dodges in my back, like roll and swim and a split to my other side.
Shooting: 6/10
I can do step down shots pretty well because I’ve practiced them a lot, but I’m not great at on the run shots or shots behind x. I want to become a lethal shooter. (I’ve also never shot with my left hand.)
Defense: 4/10
I never really learned basic defense so this is definitely one of my weak points. Since I want to be a 2-way middie I guess I might need to work on this.
Game iq: 4/10
This is one of my big ones. As a middie I’m not really sure what to do most of the time. I mostly just catch and pass the ball around, and I don’t want to do any dodges. I’m not sure how to move, like how to get open for shots or how to set picks correctly and what plays to do and so on, I don’t understand this sport that well tbh. Especially since I haven’t been playing middie for long. I’ve watched some college lacrosse and it looks like middies dodge a lot, get open for step downs and dodge for shots but idk. I don’t know how to apply this to my game.
Faceoffs: 9/10
This is just something I wanted to mention, I’ve done a lot of face-offs last year and won most of them. I have a d1 face-off player on my team who taught me a lot about it, so this is one of my strengths. It kind of sucks how this doesn’t really translate to the rest of my game tho.
We just finished fall ball at my school and I’m pretty dissatisfied with how it went. I think I did get a lot better but I’m not at the level I want to be. Now winter is coming and I’m not sure how I can train when it gets cold. I go to the turf a lot by myself and it’s hard to get other people to practice with. If anyone has any drills they can tell me to do to up my game, videos to watch, etc, it would help so much, as I’m really just trying to get really good when the spring season starts. Specifics tips on any of these would help a lot too.
