Umbrella Offense - Midfield
The umbrella set is a good way to initiate offense if you have good midfield dodgers. I like this offense for high school and youth teams because it begins to teach basic motions but most teams are void of an elite level attackman that can initiate and win consistently against poles. So, a midfield focused offense allows you to dodge Short Sticks and put attackmen in position to be scorers vs dodgers.
As an offensive coach, I am always telling my dodgers to get to the middle. We should always fight to try to get the sweep as that is a more dangerous spot on the field. The defense will be more inclined to slide if we win over the top and if they don’t slide, we have a better shooting angle.
The set has a middy on each high wing (top corner of the box) and a middy high top center (5 yds higher than top of box. The attackman occupy back right and back left. One of the attackman is a “crease guy” and wants to be high crease to be part of the middy rotations. Your crease attackman acts more like a midfielder in this set.
Midfield Action
As the dodger climbs, we want to begin drifting the top center guy away from the ball and start cutting the backside middy inside. I will say this offense improves with chemistry and timing, but, you can start your motions before the dodger begins.
Attack Action
There are a couple things you can do here, but, the easiest one to be consistent is to get the ball side attackman into the crease to clear out that adjacent defender and bring the back side attackman to X. If there is a dodge and quick shot that misses, then you have backup ready.
ONCE THE DODGE BEGINS
Once the dodge begins and the offense realizes 100% that the midfielder is sweeping. The middy who cut the crease will continue his motion all the way to the other wing and sit in a shooting spot. The drifting middy wants to keep drifting but has to get to a shooting spot so if they slide adjacent, it’s a quick catch/shot. If he drifts too far out, they have a free slide and there is no threat for us to score. The crease attackman (who acts like a middy) will follow behind the dodge to fill that space.
When the attack notice the sweep, the original clearing attackman backs out to his pipe (now backside). The backside attackman at X sneaks to his pipe (now front side). This is going to hold those defenders down there, or, if they get stuck ball watching and creeping up field, we have an easy skip pass to the pipe for a layup.
The dodger now has to be a threat to earn a slide — meaning— you need to dodge to score and get downhill. If you run straight across the top of the box, there is no reason to slide. The dodger has options once a slide comes… if the adjacent slide comes, it’s a quick forward pass to the drift for a step down (or one more if they have a good rotation). If the crease slide goes they should spin the ball back wards to the crease attackman and try to get the ball to the far wing we will have numbers while they recover.
If there is no shot on the forward pass we can go through X and reset our offense.
If we go backwards and the get ball to the backside wing - we may have a step down opportunity or we can send that righty attackman back through the crease to create space for a redodge.
We can also set up our dodge to go down the alley. Good teams will take the sweep away and heavily shade the top side. The nice thing about this is that our motions start exactly the same.
Top Center Middy drifts
Backside middy cuts the middle
Near side attack, clears to crease
Backside attack goes to X.
Crease guy follows the dodge
On the dodge we want to try and get underneath to gain a shot but if we can earn the slide. Our front outlet is to X to set up a re-dodge. The X attackman (assuming a lefty) should catch and attack the backside. The Attackman who cleared out, continues around to set a razor pick on the backside for that attack (if desired - you could just have him mirror off the crease if you like your matchup better without a pick)
This should be a dodge to score but he would have options once he gets to GLE
