Lacrosse is a combination of hockey, soccer and basketball. This team sport is played at a very fast pace with a stick called a crosse and a ball. The object of this game is to score as many points on the opposing team’s goal. 

Derek Prior has played lacrosse for four years and typically plays attack or midfielder. He shares his love for the sport and advises players to work on their stickwork.   

“Players who want to get better should work with [their] most dominant hand,” Prior said. 

Riley Abbot is another lacrosse player who plays for Oakmont, also in the midfield position. She has played lacrosse for around seven years. Abbot recommends players who want to improve to practice on their stickwork as well. 

“I would say practice your stick skills and just get wall ball times in.” Abbot said. “Wall ball is just practicing stick skills [so] when lacrosse players tell  you to play wall ball, it’s just to get reps in so you can practice your stick skills.”

Some of you may be wondering why so many of Oakmont’s lacrosse players recommend working on their stick skills. This is because lacrosse is a stick sport, so a majority of the time you’re going to want to pick up the ball and cradle or pass it towards the goal. 

Another Oakmont player who emphasized the importance of stickwork is Aiden Hamel. Hamel plays attack midfielder and encourages players to work on their stickwork outside of practice in order to improve.

“I would say [to] definitely practice outside of the allocated practice times,” Hamel said. “That’s definitely what helped me the most [to improve].” 

Overall, if a new or old lacrosse player has a desire to improve, they should practice outside of the required practice times, working on their speed, correlation and stickwork.