Failure To Advance

In lacrosse you will hear a call made by the officials that is unlike any you will ever hear in a hockey game. A lot of young players crossing over from the ice to the field will need to understand the meaning behind “failure to advance” calls. If you are defending your goal in your defensive end, a lot like back checking, and you get possession of the ball, you need to get the ball across the midfield line (like the red line in hockey) in 20 seconds. If you don’t get the ball out of your half of the field in 20 seconds, you will lose possession of the ball. If your team is fortunate enough maintain control of the ball and gets it past the midfield line, you now have only 10 seconds to get it in the box. This is the restraining line that makes up a large box that is the attack zone. If you accomplish this you may end up taking the ball out of the box, but not for more than 10 seconds. This will also result in a failure to advance call, and guess what? You lose possession of the ball. You don’t want to do that, so know where you are on the field, look for an open man to make good passes and get the ball down the field. Once you get down there, make good controlled passes and remember to back up your shots. You’ve worked hard to get the ball; you don’t want to just hand it over to the other team so easily. If you are the other team, make it very difficult for the attacking team to hold onto the ball. In hockey we use a lot of pressure, and work as a team. Sometimes that means double-teaming the puck, but rarely do we send three players to pressure just one. This works somewhat the same in lacrosse, however there are no boards to force the player over against. There is "out of bounds", and you can use your speed to force the player out. You can also harass the players into making bad passes that will allow you to intercept the ball, or it may go out of bounds on the other team. Then you get the ball. You need to have your head up, on a swivel, and work as a team. Sounds a lot like what you hear on the ice. I can’t stress enough how much your passing and catching can make or break a team. In hockey it’s the skating that sets some teams apart, in lacrosse it’s how you control the ball.