How to Play Lacrosse

Video Transcript

JAMES TAYLOR: This is James Taylor of Portland State University, Portland State Lacrosse Club and now I'm going to tell you about how to play lacrosse. In lacrosse, there's four positions. There's a midfielder, who plays both offense and defense. Attack men who play offense alone. Defense men who play defense. And a goalie who tends the goal. Essentially, each player has very specialized skills and we're going to talk about those skills right now. Midfielders take face-offs at the beginning of the game, what we call a draw which consist of two players crouching down in a crouch position, ball placed in between their sticks. When the whistle blows, they both vie for a position to pick up the ball. At that point, the two other midfielders from the wing will come in from the sides and also vie for the ball, lay body checks and stick checks to help their players pick up the ground ball. Once that's in the play, the midfielders transition the ball down field and pass it off down to the attack men. The attack men are the core of the offense for lacrosse team. Once it's in their possession, a series of picks are going to be set. And depending on what team it is, there will be a different offense set up. And what you're going to try to do is isolate and have one player draw two defenders and pass off to the open man to shoot a goal. If the ball stop, the goalie does his job. What he's going to do is what we call a clear. He's going to clear the ball downfield to a series of passes starting from him and his crease to a defense man on the corner up the line, the midfield will then take it into their offense path on the other side of the field.