On Saturday, September 18th, I observed the women's lacrosse practice out on the Ford fields. This was only the third practice the team has ever had. I choose this setting because I played lacrosse in high school and love the sport.
Reaction Time:
Reaction time is the time it takes from an initial stimulus to occur and a response to be chosen. Lacrosse is based on reaction time. The more reactive the player is, the better. One of the most frequent reactions I observed during practice occurred during simple passing and throwing drills. If a girl threw the ball inaccurately but still within reach of the other player, reaction time made the difference between a catch and a miss. The faster the reaction time, the more often the catcher could move her stick to where the ball was headed and potentially catch the ball. If the catcher's reaction time slowed, then by the time her stick got in the ball's line of fire, the ball had already passed.
Hick's Law:
Hick's Law states that the more stimuli/options a player has, the longer the reaction time will be. When practicing a 3 v. 2 drill (3 attack verses 2 defense), the goalie will throw the ball to an attacker, forcing one defender to take ball and the other defender to take the other two attackers. The moment the ball lands in one attacker's stick, both defenders must react to the situation. They must know who will get on the ball and who will take the other two. The longer they take to decide, the less chance they have of stopping the ball. During the practice, it was the second day of learning defense. Because of this, I could see a moment of hesitancy as the defenders tried to figure out how to best position themselves to block the ball. If it were a 2 v. 2, there would not be this moment of hesitancy. But when a third attacker is added, the defenders must figure out how to best react.
Psychological Refractory Period:
The Psychological Refractory Period is the delay in a player's reaction time when two stimuli are presented back-to-back. In lacrosse, effective attack players use fakes and dodges to either distract, confuse, or get around a defender. I noticed a lot of attackers pretend to either shoot or throw the ball, but instead, would actually dodge around the defender. By faking one thing and doing another, the attacker is presenting the defender with two stimuli back-to-back, which causes a delayed reaction time to the second (and true) movement. The defender will almost always follow the first movement, thinking that they are blocking the attacker. By the time they realize the attacker has changed movements, the defender has been beat by a fraction of a second.
Anticipation:
Anticipation is a player's prediction of what and when an action will happen. Lacrosse incorporates a lot of anticipation into even the most simple of drills. One example of anticipation occurred during a 2 v. 2 drill with a feeder on the side. The team was practicing tight game situations. One set of attack players set up a pick in order to get open for the feeder to pass them the ball. The attacker that was using the pick to escape from her defender had to first predict if a pick was going to happen through observing her partner's movements. Then, the attacker had to anticipate how long for her partner to get into position, how long for herself to get past the pick, and where the ball would be thrown right after she came out of the pick defender-free. The reason this requires so much anticipation is because the entire play takes about two-three seconds, and the attacker looking for the pass cannot see the ball coming at her until she is around the pick, which means that her stick needs to be in the right place at the right time in order to receive the pass. As the team practiced this drill, players accurately anticipated all the movements about half of the time. The majority of inaccurate prediction occurred when the attack player tried to catch the pass. That was the hardest step out of the play, requiring the most anticipation.
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