Positions
In general, there are four main player positions:
Two primarily defensive positions: Goaltender and Defense.
One primarily offensive position: Attack
One position that can be both offensive and defensive: Midfield
NOTE: There are also “specialty” positions and sub-types that are described below
LAX SLANG/POSITION Terminology
Goaltenders are commonly called “Goalies” or “Keepers” or “tenders”
Defense are commonly called “Defenseman” or “Defender” or “Long stick” or “Long pole”
Attack are commonly called “Attackman” or “Attacker”
Midfielders are commonly called “Middies”
Anyone who plays with a short-stick might be called a “shorty”, and anyone who plays with a long stick might be called a “pole”
during normal play
On the field, per each team, there is typically:
1 Goalie (G)
3 Defensemen (D)
3 Attackmen (A)
3 Middies (M)
Attack primarily play on their offensive half-field. Defense primarily play on their defensive half-field. Middies can play on both halves of the field. On face-offs, players must remain in their respective playing zones until one team gains possession of the ball.
Field Balance and Offsides: During play, there must be at most 7 defensive players (at least 4) on the defensive half of the field and at most 6 offensive players (at least 3) on the attacking half of the field. If not, an “offsides” penalty will be called on the unbalanced team. Note that this is much different than offsides play in hockey and soccer.
While middies can play both sides of the field; goalies, attackmen, and defensemen can move to the other playing zone, as long as another teammate “stays back” to maintain the 7/6 balance (this other player is almost always a middie).
Penalty situations
On occasion, players are penalized and have to spend a defined amount of time off-field in the penalty box (similar to hockey). This results in an unbalanced situation where one team is considered “man-up” and the other team “man-down”. This is analogous to the power-play situation in hockey.
Specialty postions
You start to see specialty positions appear at somewhat higher levels of play. As players start to figure out and specialize in a particular skill set, they start to gravitate towards more specialized roles. Certainly, all of the general positions have their own more-nuanced archetypes (or positions within positions), but it’s the middies that mostly start to specialize.
Middies can play both offense and defense on the Lacrosse field. Some middies are “true” both sides of the field players, meaning they excel at both offense AND defense (we call them “two-way”). Often though, some middies will specialize in a particular type of play. These specialized middie positions are:
The Face-off specialist: this is a middie who takes the face-offs for a team in a game. Face-offs happen at the beginning of the game, after half-time, and after each goal scored. This player can be a “true” middie or a more defensive-minded player. Sometimes though, this player is considered a FOGO (“face-off get-off”) specialist. This means, their primary role is to win face-offs and then get off the field as soon as possible
Short-stick defensive midfielder (SSDM): This is a middie who is more defensive-minded and plays with a “short” stick, but can also play offense if needed. Often, these middies go in during transition, defensive, and man-down situations. They excel at transitioning (or moving) the ball from defense to offense, and are often assigned the task of guarding the opposing team’s best middies.
Long-stick midfielder (LSM): In general, a similar specialist to the SSDM, but uses a long-stick during play. There are subtle differences between an SSDM and LSM and sometimes they’re used for/in different situations on the field.