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The short answer
Clip six things from a lacrosse game: faceoffs or draws and the wing play around them, clears and rides, transition, settled offense, team defense and slides, and man-up and man-down situations. Eight to twelve clips per game is enough.
Count ground balls as you go. Possession decides lacrosse games, and most possessions are won or lost in a scramble that lasts two seconds and is very hard to judge from the sideline.
Possession decides lacrosse
Lacrosse is a possession game played at speed. A faceoff win, a ground ball out of a scrum, a clear that gets over midfield: each one is a possession, and the team with more of them usually wins. Almost all of those moments are over in two or three seconds, in a crowd, and often on the far side of the field from the bench.
That is what film is for. From the sideline you see the shot and the goal. On film you see the slide that came a step late two passes earlier, the wing who turned the wrong way on the faceoff, and the defender who chased the ball behind the goal and left the crease empty.
Play behind the goal is part of the game, too. As in ice hockey, attackers feed and dodge from behind the cage, so footage that only frames the area in front of the goal misses where a lot of offense starts.
Boys’ and girls’ lacrosse: this post covers field lacrosse, and the two games differ. The boys’ and men’s game plays ten a side and restarts with a faceoff; the girls’ and women’s game plays twelve a side at most levels, restarts with a draw, and allows far less contact. Penalties, shot clocks and clearing rules vary by level and governing body. The phases worth clipping are much the same in both, and where they differ, this post says so.
The six things worth clipping
1. Faceoffs and draws
Every goal is followed by a restart at the center, so a high-scoring game gives you twenty or more of them. Clip them all. It is a few minutes of footage, and it shows exactly where your possessions come from.
In the boys’ game, watch past the clamp. Plenty of faceoffs are won or lost by the wings: who read where the ball was coming out, who got to it first, and who turned the right way when it squirted to the other side. The draw works the same way. The center gets the credit or the blame, but the draw control often goes to whichever player on the circle read the ball in the air and moved first.
Count the result, then look at the losses. If the opposing specialist beats yours cleanly every time, that is a matchup. If the ball comes out loose and their wings get there first, that is something you can fix this week.
2. Clears and rides
After a save, a turnover or a ground ball in your own end, the ball has to get back over midfield, with rules on how many players each side can commit and, at many levels, a count to beat. That is the clear, and the other team’s attempt to stop it is the ride.
Clip every failed clear and start at the save or the turnover, not at the lost ball. The usual causes show up in the first few seconds: nobody broke out to give the goalie an outlet, two players ran to the same spot, or the ball was carried into a double team instead of moved on. Failed clears turn into goals against quickly, because the ride has caught your defense out of position.
Ride clips are the mirror image. Watch whether your attackers turned and chased the moment the shot was saved or stood and watched it, and whether the ride had a shape or was three players running at the ball.
3. Transition and the fast break
The seconds after possession changes, before either team is set. In the boys’ game the classic picture is the 4v3: a midfielder or a long pole pushes the ball, and three defenders and the goalie have to hold off four attackers until help arrives. The girls’ game has its own unsettled numbers, and the questions are the same.
On offense, clip the breaks you created and ask whether the ball moved quickly enough to find the open player before the defense recovered, or whether the carrier held it and let the extra player disappear. On defense, watch who stopped the ball, whether the others dropped into their triangle in front of the goal, and whether the recovering midfielders sprinted back or jogged. Easy goals in transition are usually an effort or a communication problem, and both are plain on film.
4. Settled offense
Once both teams are set, offense is mostly about drawing a slide and then using it. A dodge pulls a second defender, the ball moves to the player that defender left, and either the offense finds the open shooter or the defense rotates in time.
Clip the possessions that ended in a good shot and the ones that did not, and watch the players off the ball. Did anybody cut into the space the slide came from? Were the two players nearest the dodge spaced so one pass beat the slide? The two-man game raises the same questions as a basketball ball screen: the angle of the pick, whether the picker rolled or popped, and whether the ball carrier saw it.
Give feeds from X, behind the goal, their own clips. When one gets picked off, look at the cutter as well as the feeder: the cut was often a step early, or straight into a defender’s stick.
5. Team defense and slides
The other side of the same picture. When a dodge beats a defender, the slide has to come and somebody has to fill in behind it. Most teams call it something like a hot slide and a two, and rotate the rest.
Clip every goal you conceded from a settled possession and pause on the moment the dodger got past their defender. Who was hot? Did the slide arrive before the shot or after it? Did the two cover the crease the slider left, or did two defenders end up on the ball and nobody on the open player? The goal is the last frame of a rotation, and film shows which link broke.
Watch the defender who got beaten, too. Approach, footwork and stick position decide how often your team has to slide at all, and a still frame at the dodger’s first step is usually enough to show it.
6. Man-up and man-down
Penalties leave a team a player short in both games, and the extra-player situations that follow decide close games out of all proportion to their length. Clip every one, both ways.
On man-up offense, check the possession against what you practiced: whether the ball moved faster than the defense could rotate, and whether the shots came from the spots you wanted. On man-down defense, watch the rotations as the ball moves, and whether the defense kept the inside closed and gave up only shots from distance.
Ground balls and the goalie
Ground balls
Coaches have been saying ground balls win games for as long as there has been lacrosse, and film is where you find out why you are losing them. Clip a handful of the ones you lost and watch the two seconds before the scoop: who got body position, who reached in with one hand, and who arrived second because they watched the ball instead of moving to it.
Ground balls are also the easiest effort stat to count from footage, and a count lands with players in a way that a shout from the sideline does not.
The goalie
Clip every shot on goal, saved or not. For the goalie, the useful questions are positioning on the arc before the shot, the first step, and what happened after the save: a quick, accurate outlet starts a clear or a fast break, and a slow one gives the ride time to set up.
Shooters learn from the same clips. Where did their shots go, and from where? If one shooter’s shots keep going to the same spot, the opposing goalie has noticed, and the film will show it.
| Count | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Faceoff or draw control percentage | How many possessions you start with; the clearest number in the game |
| Ground balls won | Effort and positioning, and usually the possession battle |
| Clearing percentage | Whether your outlets and spacing hold up against the ride |
| Turnovers, forced and unforced | Whether you are being pressured into mistakes or making them yourselves |
| Man-up and man-down results | Penalty situations, which swing close games |
| Save percentage | Goalie positioning, and the quality of the shots your defense allows |
Faceoff or draw control percentage is the place to start if you only track one number. It is easy to count from film, it decides how often you have the ball, and in a close game it is often the difference.
Clip the cause, not the goal
ClipItCoach’s starter tags for lacrosse are mostly outcomes: Goal, Shot, Save, Face-Off Win, Caused Turnover, Man Up and Penalty. They are good for finding moments in a long game, and for counting. They are the wrong place to coach from, because the decision that mattered usually happened before the moment you tagged.
Add a handful of tags for what you actually coach, like Slide, Clear, Ride and Ground ball, plus Draw control for a girls’ or women’s team. Set them to start a few seconds before you press the key, so every clip already includes the dodge before the slide or the save before the clear. Our guide to clipping a game with tags shows how.
Then send clips to the players they are about. Groups for your attack, midfield, defense and goalies mean the defense gets the slide clips and the attack gets the feeds from X, instead of everybody sitting through everything. See the twenty-minute film session for how to run the session itself.
Filming lacrosse
- Position: on the sideline at midfield, as high as you can get. The top of the bleachers or a press box is ideal. Height separates players around the crease and shows the spacing of a settled offense.
- Frame: in a settled possession, hold the whole offensive end, including the area behind the goal, and keep the camera still. In transition, pan with the play and frame the players rather than the ball. Zooming in on the ball loses the slides, which are the point.
- Shutter speed: the ball is small and fast, and a slow shutter blurs it into nothing on a shot. If your camera lets you, raise the shutter speed. Blur also hides the footwork and stick work you want to coach.
- A second angle: if somebody can film from high behind one goal, take it. An end line view shows slide timing and spacing in front of the cage better than any sideline shot.
- Keep it running: record through stoppages and timeouts, so the whole game is one video to upload and clip.
Our guide to filming your own games covers tripods, phones and settings.
Drawing on the play
Most lacrosse clips need nothing drawn on them. Three situations where marking up the frame changes the message.
Showing the slide that should have come
Pause on the dodger’s first step past their defender and draw where the hot slide should have come from, and where the two should have rotated to. An arrow and a ring turn “we were late” into a picture of who was late, and by how much.
Marking the outlet
On a failed clear, freeze the moment of the save and mark the outlets that were open. Players almost always see the pass they threw. The drawing shows the one they did not.
Finding the ball on a phone
A lacrosse ball on wide footage is a few pixels across, and players watch on their phones. A ring on the ball carrier at the start of a clip tells everyone where to look before the play starts moving.
Saved drawings sit in the clips list at their moment, and the video pauses on each one. Exports can include them, which also covers the highlight reel many high school players put together for recruiting: pick a player’s best clips, ring them at the start, and export one video with titles. Our guide to exporting highlights shows how, and what telestration is covers the drawing tools.
On AI tracking: ClipItCoach’s AI player tracking covers soccer, basketball and rugby. For lacrosse, the drawing tools do the job, and they work on any footage.
Common questions
What should a lacrosse coach clip from a game?
Faceoffs or draws and the wing play around them, clears and rides, transition, settled offense, team defense and slides, and man-up and man-down situations. Eight to twelve clips per game covering one or two themes works better than a long reel. Start each clip at the cause, which is usually the dodge before the slide or the save before the failed clear, not the goal.
Where should you film a lacrosse game from?
From the sideline at midfield, as high as you can get, such as the top of the bleachers or a press box. During settled play, hold the whole offensive end in frame, including the area behind the goal. In transition, pan with the players rather than zooming in on the ball. A second camera high behind one goal shows slides and spacing in front of the cage.
How do you break down lacrosse defense on film?
Pause each goal you conceded from a settled possession at the moment the dodger beat their defender. Check who was the hot slide, whether the slide arrived before the shot, and whether the next defender rotated to cover the crease. The goal is the last step of a rotation, and film shows which link broke.
Is video analysis different for boys’ and girls’ lacrosse?
The phases worth reviewing are much the same: the restart, clears and rides, transition, settled offense, team defense and penalty situations. The differences are in the detail. The girls’ and women’s game restarts with a draw rather than a faceoff, plays twelve a side at most levels rather than ten, and allows much less contact, so ground balls and defense look different on film.
Does AI player tracking work for lacrosse?
ClipItCoach’s AI tracking covers soccer, basketball and rugby. For lacrosse, the drawing tools do the job: they work on any footage and cover most of what coaches mark up, like slides, outlets and the open cutter.