42 Lacrosse Ride
Early Steps (Images 1-3)
Two attackmen cover the goalie and 2 low defenders, they are on a string meaning that when one shifts to one side, the other gets to the middle, and vice versa.
The last attackman covers the pole at midfield, with the three attackmen also in man coverage against the 3 clearing middies.
Typically the clearing team will throw box side to D2, then have M3 step over to test if they will be followed by their defender. When they are covered by M3, the ball is then thrown over to D1. A1 and A2 will shift across the field to follow the pass.
This is where you have the opportunity to play this ride in different ways.
Preventing Transition (Images 4-6)
Once D1 receives the ball, D3 will step over the midfield line. A3 will not follow D3 leaving him open for an easy pass. As this is happening M1, M2, and M3 crash to prevent any transition.
This style forces a few throws from the clearing team and is unlikely to cause a turnover, but also prevents fast breaks.
Forcing A Difficult Throw (Images 7-9)
As the ball is in the air to D1- M1, M2, and M3 will shift across the field taking away the easy pass as D3steps over the midfield line (A3 still will not follow D3).
Now the passes we are allowing D1 are a very difficult up and over pass to M3 (Image 8) or to go back over to the G or D2 (image 9), if this happens we would have our midfielders shift again
Forcing A Defender to Clear with Legs (Images 10-12)
Now all riders besides A1 and A2 follow their man now matter what, meaning A3 still will now follow D3when he steps over
As long as every player matches feet, we will either not be offsides or the clearing team will be offsides first.
We have turned the whole clear into a 3v2 between A1 and A1 and D1, D2, and G- encouraging one of them to carry the ball.
Utilizing This Ride
It can be very effective to use all three options of how to run this ride with different calls for each. It puts the clearing team in a very difficult position where they cannot identify which way you are going to approach them without getting a few steps into their clear and forces them to all be on the same page, which is very difficult.
Credit to David Schwartz for this article
