- By Avery Hixson
“Hit the wall!” - an annoying but true phrase burned into the minds of every lacrosse player. Wallball is the simplest but most effective way to take your stick skills to a higher level. Wallball can help you consistently catch passes, dodge while passing, try unique shooting methods, and more. It might seem mundane, but once you start seeing results from wallball, you won’t want to stop. Here are some important steps to perfect your skills with wallball.
Coach Jamie Munro is a former lacrosse player for Brown University and has collegiate coaching experience for both men's and women's lacrosse teams. One thing in common between men's and women's lacrosse is the importance and accessibility of wallball. Coach Munro’s Lacrosse Wall-Ball Drills course expresses the need for wallball for developing players and shows how to do it effectively.
Big-Picture Ways to Improve with Wallball
1. Fluidity of Switching Hands
Every style of passing used while playing wallball can be done with both hands, which will significantly improve your fluidity between hands so that you can be more versatile of a player on the field.
2. Throwing at Different Angles
Once you’ve nailed the basics of catching and throwing in wallball, the next step is to push yourself beyond routine play. Experiment with different angles, speeds, and passing styles to challenge your reflexes and accuracy. Wallball offers endless ways to keep your game sharp.
Improves Two-Handedness: Switch Hand Quick Sticks
As previously mentioned, varying your passing style is a crucial way to become more of an asset as a player. One way to improve your reflexes is by practicing quick sticks. Coach Munro’s course has several segments about conquering quick sticks. Here’s what one of them covers.
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Quick sticking is a style of passing characterized by quick, powerful passes without a full follow through. The pass allows the ball to bounce quickly back off the wall and helps with receiving short yet powerful passes; a crucial skill for high-pressure moments on the field. Switch hand quick sticks are where you switch the hand your stick is in between passes, which merges the benefits of quick passes with switching hands.
The player featured by Coach Munro in the course displays the usefulness of quick sticks for “two-handedness” and switching hands.
Throwing at Different Angles with Wristers
Wristers are a passing style often mentioned by Coach Munro that is characterized by hard, powerful passes towards the bottom of a wall from a farther distance away. Coach Munro explains in his wallball course how these implement a different passing style and are a great practice for improving players.
With wristers you can practice a variety of different passing styles such as overhand, three quarters, sidearm, and underhand. All of these different angles of throwing have real-world value on the field and are a great way to improve your skillset using wallball.
Taking Wallball to the Next Level: Implementing the Face Dodge
Once you master the basics of wallball, it can be difficult to progress further. However, by practicing dodges while doing wallball you can improve at a more advanced level. Coach Munro's wallball course teaches one example of this. The extra steps of the pass increase the difficulty which will up a player's game to the next level.
The face dodge is a well known lacrosse concept best described as when a player dodges a defender by planting their foot and stepping to their offhand side while simultaneously cradling their stick over to the offhand side, mimicking a hand switch or a direction change, and then swiftly switching back to the leading foot and dominant hand.
Bringing the face dodge to wallball is somewhat simple. Facing the wall, players should do a full face dodge and as they finish the motion, release the ball and pass it to the wall. This mimics real game situations like passing under pressure of a defender, and can be a real game changer for more advanced players.
Hit the Wall!
Ultimately, wallball isn’t just a warm-up drill, it’s one of the most powerful tools for sharpening your lacrosse game. From building two-handed confidence with quick sticks to mastering wristers at multiple angles, the skills you develop translate directly to better performance on the field. The beauty of wallball lies in its simplicity and accessibility. Any player, anywhere, can pick up a stick, find a wall, and get better. So the next time you “hit the wall,” remember that every rep is an investment in your speed, accuracy, and versatility. Keep at it, and you’ll see your game reach new heights.
