USA Ultimate

What Should We Contain?

by Jeff Eastham-Anderson

Zone Basics
I've always been a fan of a good trapping zone, but in unpredictable winds even a very conservative and basic zone would produce turns. There are way too many specifics and permutations to cover in this forum, but below are three principles of a trapping zone. 

Basically, a trapping zone consists of three things. First, how are you going to allow the disc to move to a sideline. This is a combination of making it hard to move the disc in the middle, and making a lateral throw an easy pass without giving up too many yards. 

Second, how are you going to apply pressure once you are on the sideline. This typically involves shifting the cup to take away easy dumps, and shifting the remaining downfield defenders to the strong side so that the only remaining options are a short pass that looses yardage, or a long throw over many defenders to the weak side. 

Finally, how are you going to contain when the disc moves off sideline or downfield. A lateral throw can often be contained, but everyone needs to react and take away the next throw, and not the one that was just thrown. For downfield throws, the deep and wings can often be most effective by just covering a person, instead of an area. The primary goal is to prevent other downfield passes, then re-establish containment with zone coverage. 

Adjustments
One adjustment would be to have a zone-to-man transition, or just run man a couple points. Once a team starts to figure a zone out, they will gain confidence through repetition. The easiest way to counter this is to give them and entirely different look for a few points. Unless you have an entirely different zone set, this usually means a zone to man transition, or just man for the entire point. 

If you had only enough time in one time-out to talk to a single player in your zone D, which position would that be? What might you tell them to adjust?
The best person to talk to would be the short deep, or whoever the defender is that is right behind the cup. Most zones get hosed when the disc moves to the place you least want it to move. For a trapping zone this is upfield when it is in the middle, or across the entire field when it is trapped. The former is really the short deep's responsibility, as he is in the best position to joystick the cup defenders whose main objective is to make a wall and deny the middle of the field. Again, there are so many permutations, but essentially you will need to adjust your positioning to take away more of the middle, while giving the offense more of an opportunity to move laterally.