Middie Ballhogging?

[Lax1228]

sry if this has been said before, I didn't really know what to search....

This may just be on my team, but it seems like 90% of our goals are scored by a middie on a fast break. I used to play attack, but the midfielders would never pass us the ball. I don't like playing defense, but I switched to middie just so I could get the ball. Is this what's supposed to happen or should we try to pass to the attackmen more? Anyone else ever had this problem?

btw I'm in middle school.

[LaxBoy92]

i'm in middle school, too. i have the same problem, but not 90% of the time. our middies will take the face off, and just run it down the field and score without passing at all. its really annoying (i play attack)

[WHEELAX2]

traditionally, the middies are "supposed" to bring the ball to the attack, then the attack pretty much runs the offense, ball works around, isolation play by attack, they score, blah blah.. or sometimes you would try to work for a draw/dump play etc.. however the game has changed quite significantly in that you will see a lot of middies essentially attacking the cage, but overall the offense is balanced, lot of ball movement, etc.

if the mids are getting good looks and taking good shots, it's ok, but if they are not passing the ball, then there's a problem...

[MaKiMaKi13]

well if there drawing off the fast break and score i dont see a problem as long as there getting the goal but usually its our job to get it to the attack depending on whose open maybe your D is just covering your attack well enough that there isnt enough room to get the shot off to the attack

[ekajsk8er]

if they beat there man, and the defender doesnt step up and he has an open shot, theres nothing wrong with that. if he forces a shot when hes got a d-man and a middie on him, he should be looking to dump it off to the open man. how often do they force the shot? if they do this often you need to have a talk with either them or the coach because if hes not noticing it, you should tell him right away. last year the same thing was happening with our middies, but my coach new about it and had a talk with them. they than started to draw the double, and dump it off to an attackman for a 1 on 1 with the goalie.

[RockStar]

....if the mids are getting good looks and taking good shots, it's ok, but if they are not passing the ball, then there's a problem...

Yup.

You shouldn't be complaining about someone who's scoring goals. The only valid complaint in this case would be if the middies were wasting possession by taking dumb shots, or being stripped of the ball before they could take good shots.

Also, there's two sides to every story. Are all of your attackers open, or at least on the move, every time the middies bring it? If not, passing is a dumb idea.

[shoebag2000]

If they are scoring, then there is nothing wrong with it. Any play that consistently results in goals is obviously a good play. Besides, its a lot easier to dodge someone when already running from half field than trying to dodge from a standing start in front of the d. And does your team have a lot of middies, or a lot of attackmen? Because maybe its better that you switched to middie anyways, I personally feel it is a lot more fun of a position to play, and is a lot more needed. There are too many kids on my team that think they can take the easy way out by playing attack and still get game and ball time, and then we always end up being short middies. Middies are the backbone of a team, it makes sense that they score more goals.

[Lax1228]

Also, there's two sides to every story. Are all of your attackers open, or at least on the move, every time the middies bring it? If not, passing is a dumb idea.

Our attackmen are open most of the time, but I think that most of our middies think that the attack might drop the ball or miss the shot (which both happen a lot) and don't take the chance.

And does your team have a lot of middies, or a lot of attackmen?

I think that most kids want to play middie and the kids that end up on attack are the ones who are either really slow or incredibly small. We have like 3-4 middie lines and 2 attack.

[shoebag2000]

Wow man, you are lucky then. Around here, everyone and their mom want to play attack. Its seldom that you get a kid that wants to play middie and actually is good. Most people thing that if you have stick skills, then you are defaulted to attack.

And does this happen a lot in practice, or just in games? And what do the middies do when you have a slow break or a shot gets blocked or misses and you maintain posession?

[Lax1228]

And does this happen a lot in practice, or just in games? And what do the middies do when you have a slow break or a shot gets blocked or misses and you maintain posession?

It happens in practices and games, I think it's pretty much what most teams do in our league. When we aren't on a fast break, we usually have a lot of unneccessary dodging and passing between attackmen (another reason middies don't want to pass to them) and lots of groundballs, middies stay back for defense and watch the attack try and get the perfect shot that they know they will make. Our offense pretty much relies on a fast break.

[RockStar]

One other theory is that if you can't fix it, try to use it better. It sounds like your system is sort of working already, so maybe instead of working to overhaul it, just work to change it slightly but for the better.

If your middies are consistently beating their counterparts and getting open looks, there's a real mismatch somewhere. Maybe the attackers could help exploit this mismatch even more by coming up to set picks, or at very least to keep moving and trying to spread the defense as wide as possible to create seams.

I dunno, I'm just talking out of my *** here, but to me, if any player is able to find open shooting lanes, and able to put decent shots on net, I'd scream at him if he didn't shoot, not if he did!

[marflax33]

Its nothing like that for us. I play middie and almost every time i touch it i dish it to an attackman.i hardly ever score for that reason.

[Lax1228]

i'm in middle school, too. i have the same problem, but not 90% of the time. our middies will take the face off, and just run it down the field and score without passing at all. its really annoying (i play attack)
We played a team like that (they fo man was really good), but we stopped them by getting one of our "wing" middies to get about 10 yards down the field on the face off and come straight across to stop the fast break.

[SJmiddi]

like marflax said, it's the same with me. I play middi too and i rarely score at all. Our team works very well together and we play good teams. Usually the ball goes around the entire goal, to every offensive player before we even do something (just to figure out their D). We try to slow things down with our offense so that we're making smart decisions and plays. The only time a middi scores on a fast break for us is if he catches the slide off guard. Usually we feed the attack (who should get open immdediately) once someone slides off an attackman and they take it from there to score.

[W.e Lax]

yeah i get a decent amount of middie ball hogging , mainly becasue most middies think there attackman, and dont even drop back for good D

[mike06]

well i just have a question is a dpole challenging the middie if not than yeah hes supposed to shoot the way the fastbreak works is it puts the defence out of position because now its 4 on 3 i play both attack and midfield and if your playing midfield and your not being challanged by a dpole your supposed to shoot if not you get to run the whole time during practice the next day and that also gos for if a dpole challanges you and you dont pass it

[a2lacrosse]

im one of those midfields, i usually win the draw and score a few seconds later. i probably
pass 40% of the time, if they call help or cut then i pass for sure but they usually dont so i just go for the goal myself. our attack in middle school had decent stick skills but were scared of defenders so they werent all that reliable.

[Mad-Max]

yea, we have a few middies who feel they "have to prove themselves" it does get pretty annoying after the 3rd shot that goes flying over the goal. They are improving in passing the ball more, but there is still room for improvement, nothing agaisnt them though, they really hustle.

[punkerdude123]

my team had the same problem last year...the middies never passed the ball. not only that but theyd get stripped and miss or shoot the goalie. i had the most goals with 4, all off either ground balls after they were stripped, or on the rare occasion they passed to the lefty attackman. just so you know, i dont suck, we only played 6 games, and my coach benched me for one and i was ineligible. so a goal a game and i should have had one more, missed the opposite pipe going lefty. just so you get perspective, two of our middies had 9 and 8 goals and that was it. the one with 9 gave me the pass to the lefty shot i missed, to my opposite side. horrible pass.

[MeRattack]

im a nice middie and pass, but it is fun on FBs to take the ball and shoot, but i also like to keep the ball in my stick, and it is pretty rare when there isnt 3 defenders in your face when you try to get an easy close shot at the goal, and plus the top scorers on the team are usually attackmen so stop complaining

[slice n dice]

They probably think that your attack sucks.. can they catch and all that good stuff? If not then that may be the problem, is they can catch and do as much as the middies can then you just have a bunch of ball hogs.