Lacrosse Rules

Being a full contact sport, several rules of lacrosse are maintained to help keep the game on a candid level. There are general rules that are followed, and some rules are only applied to specific levels of play. For example, men’s lacrosse is allowed to be remarkably rougher than women’s lacrosse or even high school lacrosse rules. So while checking on the body using sticks are legal and very much a tactical feature, this is fairly absent and against the women’s lacrosse rules.

Here’s a short summary defining the different basic lacrosse rules:

Men’s Lacrosse Rules

Played on the outdoors field with 10 players on both sides, this type of lacrosse is a full contact sport. The same game objective exists: to shoot the ball using the crosse into the opposing team's goal, with the team having the most goal scored wins.

Players gain possession of the ball and cradle it towards the opponent’s side for an offensive play. And the opposing players are permitted to dislodge the ball by checking using the stick. Slapping the opposing offensive ball carrier’s crosse to dislodge the ball does a stick check, and so does slapping the gloved hands. Poke checking are another methods of dislodging the ball from an opponent’s play.

Aggressive checking is discouraged and would result a personal foul. Fair game checks and body contacts using the crosse are allowed only on the front and sides, above the belt and below the shoulders, and only when the opponent has the ball or else within 5 yards in anticipation of a loose ball or a passing move. Stick checking, using the crosse to check or hinder (but not clamp) an opposing player’s crosse, is also permitted with the same grounds as body checking. And when stick checking, the defender’s both hands should hold the crosse, or it could result to a personal foul.

Women’s Lacrosse Rules

One large difference women’s lacrosse has over men’s lacrosse is the absence of physical body contact, although stick checks are permitted as long as they are controlled pokes and jabs. This allowed women lacrosse players to shed bulky padding and gloves, and concentrate their offensive and defensive strategies principally on speed and finesse.

Women’s lacrosse is played on a slightly bigger field, at 120 yards by 70 yards, with 12 players including the goalkeepers plus the 2 additional midfielders instead of the standard 10. The game is played for 60 minutes, with 30-minute halftime breaks.

Because physical contacts are disallowed, women’s lacrosse rules are somewhat easier to maintain and very straightforward. Protective gears are only extended to mouth guards and protective eye goggles, with the goalies the only players on the field wearing the full set of protective gears.

The focus of this game is speed and finesse, and rarely would there by any close body picks when playing women’s lacrosse. As mentioned earlier, stick checking is still allowed, but not the aggressive crosse slaps we see highlighted on men’s lacrosse. Here, stick checks are controlled taps and pokes to an opposing member’s crosse in an attempt to dislodge the ball free.

In an attempt to take advantage of the rule, women lacrosse players have been holding crosse closer to their bodies whenever they are in possession of the ball, so as a safe stick checking would be impossible. Since then adjustments had been made against such maneuvers. A women’s crosse has also shallower pockets to make ball carrying harder, and the game fairer since heavy checks are disallowed.

In an event of a foul, penalized players are sent to penalty boxes to serve time –without replacement on the playing field. Penalties can extend from 1 minute up to 3 minutes in varying length, depending on the referee’s discretion. This would create a man down opportunity to the opposition, and a very important and frequent tactical advantage.