Girls Lacrosse Positions Explained

Twelve players, four position groups, and one job that gets its own national award but is not really a position at all. Girls lacrosse is organized nothing like the boys’ game, and almost every guide online explains it wrong.

Here is the first thing to know, because it explains most of the confusion. Two different sets of position names are both in active use. If you are new to the sport entirely, start with our complete girls lacrosse guide and come back here.

1. The structure — twelve on the field

1.1 Every position at a glance

One line each, with both sets of names. The rest of this page is the detail.

1.2 The equalizer nobody mentions

There is no stick-length specialization anywhere in the women’s game. Every field player carries the same stick — 35½ to 43¼ inches — regardless of position. There is no long pole and there is no equivalent of it. The gear guide covers how to pick one.

That matters more than it sounds. In the boys’ game a coach decides which four players get a long stick, and that decision shapes the roster and the depth chart. In the girls’ game every player is handed the same tool and has to win the job with footwork and hands. It is a genuinely more equal starting point and it is worth telling your daughter.

1.3 What controls the shape of the game

The boys’ game is shaped by the four-pole rule. The girls’ game is shaped by the restraining line: a maximum of seven players over the line in the offensive end, and eight in the defensive end.

That single rule forces the same decision on every possession — who releases and who stays home — and it is why midfielders in the women’s game have to be genuinely two-way athletes.

2. Attack — four players

The four attackers stay in the offensive end and are responsible for scoring. They are usually the best stick handlers and the best decision-makers on the roster.

2.1 The old names, and what they meant

• First Home — closest to the goal. The finisher. Lives in traffic, scores off feeds, and has to be fearless in front of the cage.
• Second Home — the primary feeder. Historically considered the most important attacking position on the field, because everything ran through her.
• Third Home — the link between midfield and attack. Transitions the ball, distributes, and is the first line of the ride when possession is lost.

2.2 Is there an “X” in the girls’ game?

Not as a named position. Women’s teams absolutely run offense from behind the cage and above it — but there is no women’s equivalent of the boys’ “X” as a defined role, and no source names one. If you see a guide claiming otherwise, it is borrowing from the boys’ game.

2.3 What a coach evaluates

Both hands, first. Then whether she can catch cleanly under pressure with a shallow pocket, which is genuinely harder than it looks. And whether she draws a double team and finds the open player, or forces it.

3. Midfield — three players, the hardest job on the field

Midfielders play both ends, take draws, and are the only players who legally cover the whole field. The restraining line rule means a midfielder is constantly making the decision to release or stay.

The older vocabulary splits them into attack wings and defense wings, which describes where a player leans rather than a separate job.

Conditioning is the entire position. A midfielder who is fit at minute fifty is worth more than one who is skilled at minute five.

4. Defense — four players

4.1 The old names

• Point — marks First Home. The last line before the goalie.
• Cover Point — marks Second Home, which means marking the other team’s best feeder.
• Third Man — marks Third Home and reads the field, often the defender who slides first.

4.2 Defense is footwork, not checking

This is the part that surprises parents most. Because of shooting space, the sphere and the checking restrictions, girls defense is almost entirely positioning.

A defender may not stand in the shooting lane unless she is within a stick’s length of the ball carrier. She may not enter the 12-inch protected sphere around a player’s head. She may not sit in the 8-meter arc more than three seconds without marking someone. All three are explained in full in our rules guide for parents.

What is left is feet, hips and angles. A girls defender who is technically sound looks calm and unspectacular, and she is the reason her team wins.

5. Goalkeeper

The only player who sees the whole field, which is why she runs the defense.

• The goalie stick runs 35½ to 52 inches — longer than a field stick, with a wider head.
• She has 10 seconds to clear the crease once she has possession — against 4 seconds in the boys’ game. More time, and it is still not much.

What a coach evaluates: quickness of the first move over size, whether she talks constantly, and how fast she resets after a goal. Those three things, in that order.

6. The draw — a job, an award, and not quite a position

This is the most misunderstood role in the women’s game, and it deserves care.

Two players stand at the center circle with their sticks back-to-back at hip height and the ball between the heads. On the whistle both pull up and away, and the ball must travel above both players’ heads.

6.1 Why coaches obsess over it

A won draw is a possession that costs nothing. Over a season a team that wins draws gets dozens of extra scoring chances. It is free offense.

The record: Maddie Jenner of Duke won 229 draw controls in 19 games in 2022 — 600 in her career, second all-time behind Jessica Karwacki of Robert Morris at 645.

6.2 How to actually get better at it

Draw work is trainable alone and almost nobody does it. Timing off the whistle, hand speed on the pull, and reading where the ball is going before it lands. A player who spends fifteen minutes a week on draws will win jobs. When that starts to matter to a college coach is covered in our girls recruiting guide.

7. What changed for 2026–27

The NCAA made the biggest women’s rule changes in years, and two of them affect the draw directly:

• A 30-second draw clock after goals — the restart is now on a timer
• Quarter-end possession carries into the next quarter instead of a fresh draw
• A simplified penalty structure — all yellow cards are now two-minute non-releasable
• A new “targeting” foul — forcible contact with no attempt to play the ball is an automatic red card

Source: NCAA.

8. The players to watch

• Charlotte North — grew up in Dallas playing basketball, did not pick up a stick until seventh grade, and set the NCAA career scoring record. Two Tewaaraton Awards.
• Izzy Scane — Northwestern. NCAA career goals record, 376.
• Taylor Cummings — Maryland. The only three-time Tewaaraton winner in the history of the award, men’s or women’s.
• Maddie Jenner — Duke. The draw control record holder.
• Chloe Humphrey and Sam Forrest — UNC · Shea Dolce — Boston College, in goal

9. Which position for your daughter

Same answer as the boys’ side: do not pick one yet.

Temperament tells you more than size at young ages. The kid who wants the ball when it matters is an attacker. The kid who reads a play two passes early is a defender or a goalie. The kid with the engine plays midfield.

And every one of them should take draws in practice, because it is a skill nobody trains and it is how a player makes herself useful on any roster.

10. Play everywhere first

The best players I have seen at eighteen are the ones who played three positions at ten. They understand what the player they are marking is trying to do, because they used to be her.

Specialization is a high school decision. Before that, the goal is a player who has stood in every spot on the field and knows what the game looks like from all of them.