Women’s Lacrosse and How to Cradle Under Pressure
I watch a lot of women’s lacrosse games since I umpire them (they pay more than men’s lacrosse) and I am always surprised to see how often the ball is dropped when a player receives pressure. Most often it is due to where the players top hand is located.
Often when a players hand is lower on the stick you will notice the stickhead is higher over the head. When pressure is applied from an attacking defender an offensive player tends to draw the stick closer to them and often will lean back to get away from the defender. This brings the stick back over their head and the ball falls out. See Fig 1. To stop the ball from falling out you can move your top hand up which will lower you stick head and prevent the ball from falling out due to a poor cradle under pressure. See Fig. 2
A natural reaction is to lean away from defensive pressure and this will cause you to lean your stick back also and the ball will most often fall out because of gravity…
Fig 1.
By holding you hand higher on the stick you will notice that there will be less of a tendency to lean back. You will find youself dodging to the left or the right and tucking your cradle in to avoid a check instead of leanin back.
Fig. 2
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