Tryouts Day 2

Whew. I feel like a whirlwind has passed through. Our second open tryout session was, er, well attended with 29 tryouts present (40 players total). Which was great, except that we only had about 2 hours of practice time and I found it difficult to pay enough attention to everyone. Personally, I think I ran a better practice on Sunday, but maybe it's just that I felt more stretched during the second tryout.

What we did: Vertical offense - cutting, continuations, dumping.

The basis of good cutting relies on positioning so that you have multiple options, getting the defense to commit, and, finally, recognizing that.

Good positioning is dependent on where the disc is - you want to give yourself as many viable cuts from one spot as possible. Which means, if you start too deep, you're committed to only cutting in and a good defender will recognize that and shut you down. If you position well, you make it much more difficult on the defender and you can overcome an athletic difference.

Furthermore, you should note your defender's position as well - if she's backing you, see how deep you can start before she starts narrowing the buffer and fronting you. You can also change your angle of attack by changing your starting position, and oftentimes the defense doesn't adjust correctly and you now have a much easier cut.

Many players weren't getting separation because they weren't cutting aggressively enough to have the defender commit. Too often people are thinking "I need to fake" and therefore they move slower and are not convincing enough to fool the defender. If you've set up properly with 2 cutting options, and you cut hard one direction, the defender has to respect that or she'll be burned. This was especially apparent when we worked on dumping - both up the line and back towards the center are fine options, but the dumps needed to truly threaten going up the line, otherwise they'd be covered for the around and unable to get off the swing.

The last piece seemed to be the most difficult though - knowing when you have made your defender commit to your cut. My goal when cutting is to either get my defender to turn her hips fully in one direction or to get her back onto her heels. Either way, I need to pay enough attention to my defender to be able to see how she's reacting. I personally tend to watch her in my peripheral vision, so that I can still be looking at the disc or at my teammates if I'm cutting in flow. What I'm noting is the speed and quality of her movement - if she sits back on her heels, then there's an abrupt, jerky movement backward. If she's turned her hips, then she starts accelerating in the direction I'm headed, and that's when I know to change directions.

Dumping

sMITe has many young players, and therefore when we try to play possession oriented offense, we rely heavily on the dump. It's a fairly simple concept - give a short pass back to a handler, but there are many nuances and differences in how you can run the dump.

A classic dump is to stand about 10 feet away from the thrower, opposite the mark, and make a few jukes to either direction to lose your defender. The dump is usually given as a soft backhand. The benefit of this is that the dump throw is fairly easy - all the thrower has to do is recognize when the dump is open and throw a short pass in that direction. However, you often don't get enough separation to get a break swing off, so you just lose a few yards without the mitigating effect of gaining break side progress.

Another dump that many teams use is to stand on the break side of the thrower, about 10 yards away, with two areas of attack: up the line, or back towards the break side of the field. This dump results in either a power position for the handler when she gets the disc with momentum going up the line, or improved field position with the possibility of flowing down the break side. This requires a more reliable thrower, however, because the around dump is generally angled slightly away, and the thrower needs to be able to make that under pressure of the mark.

sMITe has started moving a bit more towards the first type of dumping, partly because of the increased ease of dumping for newer throwers, but also because with horizontal offense, not changing the position of the disc from the middle of the field is actually a benefit!

Points of note:
If the dump defender is face guarding, then the thrower should initiate the dump and put it to the easier side for the dump to receive the disc.
If the dump defender is looking only at the disc, then the dump makes the move away from the defender.
If you have the disc, turn completely towards your dump and stay turned to your dump until stall 8 (then turn upfield and huck it)

Defending the dump

The first principle of defense is to dictate: by your positioning and reactions, force the dump in a predetermined direction. That eliminates much of the guesswork involved with playing D and allows you to anticipate the movement of the offense.

In applying this to the dump, your choices generally become defending the up the line or defending the around. If the dump goes up the line, she both gains yardage and has momentum moving into a power position. If you force her to go around, she may have a break side look depending on the amount of separation achieved. Your choice then should depend on your knowledge of the other team's preferences as well as your own team's expectations of what to defend.

For me, I would generally rather give up the behind/around dump than the up the line. That means that I initially set up a smidgen more downfield than the dump, and about 2-3 yards closer to the disc. As the dump makes the cut up the line to the force side, I need to stay slightly more force side than the dump, as well as maintain my positioning between her and the disc.

It's important, too, to check back with the disc. As you pass behind the mark, it's a good time to glance at the thrower to see if they're preparing to throw the disc - or have already thrown the disc. Many a defender has been burned by discs flying sight unseen over their shoulders, all the while thinking, man, I had her covered!

However, I do mean "glance." If you turn fully towards the thrower, you end up turning your hips away from your cutter and thus lose sight of her. You have no idea, for a moment, of where the dump is and where she is going. Is she continuing with the up the line cut? Did she plant and go back for the around? Keep your hips oriented towards the dump, and turn your head to the disc, and all will be accounted for.

So now that you've denied the up the line, the dump is likely going to attempt getting the disc towards the break side. She will probably have a slight advantage going that side, but you have already made the decision to force her that direction. Your next priority as a dump defender is to then stop any further break side flow of the disc. If you have no play on the throw to the dump, then change course and get between the dump and the break side continue, looking to first seal off the around break, and then as you move in, the inside break. It's the same principle as playing a point in the zone cup - look to take away the continue throw, and then move in to set up the mark. Contain, contain, contain.