Man to Man Defense With a Crease Slide

• his is the most common lacrosse defensive package for lacrosse at any age, but especially in high school. 
• This defense is run when the offensive set (or formation) has one attacking player on the crease, or two attacking players on the crease. 
• Start by having each defender match up with an offensive player, and stand between them and the goal. If you are matched up with the man with the ball, you should be pressed out on him further away from the goal. If you are matched up with an opponent who does not have the ball, you should be further away from your man and closer to the goal. That is called “packing it in” so that all the players who are not covering the ball (off-ball) are in a good position to help other defenders and stop offensive players from getting closer to the net. 
• Now for the crease slide package. 
• This defense is designed to stop one man from dodging all the way to the goal on his own and getting a good shot. This is done with a crease slide. 
• If the defender who is matched up with the man dodging with the ball plays great defense and keeps him away from the goal, you do not need to slide to help.
• A slide happens when the offensive player dodges past their defender on the outside and is now a threat to get closer to the goal and take a shot.  
• A normal offense will have 5 players surrounding the goal on the outside edge, with one player standing on the inside in front of the goal (standing on the crease). 
• When sliding from the crease, the defender who is covering the offensive player paying the crease position, will be the first person to leave his man and go help out in defending the man with the ball (sliding to the ball). That player will slide away from their man, leaving him undefended on the crease, while he goes directly to the man with the ball in his stick who is dodging towards the goal. 
• He will then be matched up with the player with the ball and will no longer be covering his original man on the crease. 
• This slide from the crease is the first part of the Crease Slide Defensive Package. This is called the “Hot Slide” or the “One Slide” since it is the first slide to leave their man and slide to help someone else. 
• When this happens and the hot slide leaves the crease man to go play the ball, he leaves an open man on the crease (right in front of the net). This is where the “Two Slide” comes in. When the One slide leaves his man to cover the ball, another defender (the two slide) must leave their man to cover the man on the crease, because he is the next biggest threat. 
• So which defender is the two slide?
  • This is where the slide packages get complicated. The short answer is the defender on the backside, or the defender covering the offensive player furthest from the ball. 
  • Since the two slide has to leave the guy he is covering and go fill in and cover the offensive player on the crease, we are leaving one offensive player open and it is best to leave the player open who is the furthest from the ball because he is the least threat to score. 
• If your team can grasp the one and two slides, you can run a very successful man to man defense with a crease slide package. 
• The last piece of this package is the, you guessed it, “three slide”.
  • Once the one slide has done their job, and the two slide has done his job, the three slide refers to the defender who is now watching two defenders at once. He is responsible to watch his man, and the offensive player that the two slide left open on the backside.
• Essentially, once the one slide and two slides have done their jobs, the remaining defenders need to split the remaining offensive players which would be 4 offensive players and 3 defensive players. 
• They must split those responsibilities until the defender who originally got beat by the first dodge, is able to get back into position and find a new man to cover.