Horizontal stack cutting: how the lane cutters get open
In a horizontal stack the lane cutters do the work. Four steps that show how a pair of cutters uses vertical and horizontal cuts to open the middle of the field, then attacks it.
In a horizontal stack the handlers keep the disc moving, but the lane cutters are the ones who make the offence go. Four players spread across the field, each with a defender, and one job: create space, then run into it before the defender can recover.
This play, Horizontal Cutting, strips the offence down to that job. Ignore the handlers for now and watch what the four cutters do. Two of them move, two of them hold, and the disc goes exactly where the movement said it would.
Two kinds of cut
A lane cutter has two directions to attack.
- Vertical cuts go up and down the field: deep toward the end zone, or back in toward the disc. A deep cut pulls the defender away from the thrower. The cut back in is the one that usually gets the disc.
- Horizontal cuts go across the field. They change which side the cutter is attacking from, and they drag a defender through traffic to get there.
Neither cut works on its own. A defender can guard one direction if they know it is coming. What beats them is the change: a vertical cut that turns into a horizontal one, or a deep cut that turns sharply back in.
Step by step
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Step 1
Horizontal Setup.
The setup. O1, O2 and O3 are the handlers across the back, with O2 holding the disc. O4 and O5 are the cutters on one side, O6 and O7 on the other. Two of the four are about to move: O5 is starting a vertical cut upfield, and O6 is starting a cut in across the middle. O4 and O7 hold their width.
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Step 2
Lane cutters make vertical and horizontal cuts to open up space.
O5 has pushed deep and now turns back down toward the disc. O6 has cut across and is working toward the middle of the field. Between them they have dragged two defenders out of the space in the centre. Nothing has been thrown yet, and that is fine: these cuts are for opening space, not for getting the disc.
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Step 3
Lane cutters cut into the open space.
Now the attack. O6 pushes on upfield to the top of the space, and O5 cuts hard into the middle of the field, into the gap the two cuts have just created. O2 sees it and throws to the space ahead of O5. This is the throw the whole sequence was built for.
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Step 4
Other lane cutters shift and position themselves for continuation cuts.
O5 has the disc in the middle of the field. O6 is upfield of the play, and O4 and O7 have held their positions on the outside, so the offence still has width and a deep option. From here the next pair of cutters starts the same pattern for the continuation.
Tips
- Cut to create, then cut to receive. The first cut is often a decoy. Commit to it anyway, because a half-hearted deep cut does not move the defender.
- Cut in pairs, not in crowds. Two cutters move while the other two hold. If all four cut at once, the middle of the field fills up with bodies and nothing is open.
- Attack the space, not the disc. O5's final cut is into the gap, and the thrower puts the disc in front. Cutting straight at the thrower brings the defender with you.
- Hold your width. O4 and O7 do not move in this sequence, and that is a real job: they keep two defenders out of the middle.
Run it with the four cutters and one thrower first, no defence, until the timing of the two cuts is automatic. Then add defenders on the cutters. When a pair can open the middle of the field on demand, the horizontal stack starts to look easy.