Isolated Horrizontal

Useful Link: https://ultiworld.com/feature/davides-doctrines-horizontal-stack/
Davide has been a significant part of the development of club and youth ultimate in recent years.

Davide’s post goes into great depth about different ways to play a Horizontal Stack Offence.
We will not be doing a full breakdown of general horizontal offence so if you are unsure then refer to this guide

Why Horizontal?
  • More space for cutters, leads to less picks and less opportunity for defensive switching.
  • Easily accessible deep space for cutters to exploit
  • Spreading of cutters provides multiple simultaneous options for the thrower.
Key Principals
  • Fundamental cutting principals should remain the same.
    • Deepcuts are straight or angled to create a positive throwing channel for the thrower.
    • Under cuts should be angled ~45degrees and not straight at the handler or straight at a sideline
  • Deep throws should not be thrown to cutters in the same third of the field as the thrower.
  • Handlers are encouraged to be agressive on reset cuts looking to progress the disc and make space for the other handler to get involved
  • Handlers should always be aiming to gain ground back immediately on swings after recieving a reset.
Mini Stack patterns
Mini- Stack Pattern – Option 1

Mini- Stack Pattern – Option 2

Recycling the offence

How to Clear
  • From a deep cut you should clear horizontally into the inactive space then rejoin the horizontal stack in Cutting Position 3
  • From an Under Cut you should clear Horizontally into the inactive space then rejoin the Horizontal Stack in Cutting Position 3
Principals
  • Handlers do not clear into the open lane ever. If a handler wishes to push through they should join the stack in Position 3
  • The Outer Cutters do not push across the field as the play develops, instead the continue downfield, ready to be activated when the disc swings
  • Handlers should look to gain ground on swings and hit isolated cutters early when possible
Learning Isolated Horizontal from scratch
Drill 1 – Cutting Shapes

Cutting Option 1

The first option is that both of our cutters are able to get open under in a 1v1 match up, the advanatage of running a horizontal stack is that we have a very open deep shot which we can use to exploit the defence.

If our continuation cutter is not on going deep they will turn and come under into the large open-side for a large gainer.

Cutting Option 2

The Second Option is that our first cutter doesn’t get open

YOU DO NOT CLEAR DEEP AFTER AN UNDER CUT.
Clearing in the open lane will take a long time, so instead we clear onto the break-side which is also a viable option as shown in Option 2.

Cutting Option 3

If the first cutter(2) isn’t able to receive the disc under or onto the break-side then they should clear and we now have a half field that our second cutter (3) will now take the active role and will repeat the same process.

Drill 2 – Full Offensive Structure

This Drill we will look to flow up a field length without defence initially(Left) Then we will add defence (right)

Comparrisons with other offence

How does this compare to other offences?

In the Pepper-Mill offence (Middle) again we see how two cutters work together to get free and progress the offence. This means that the offence must reset the pairs in order to be able to flow beyond the first passes (right)

Useful Links
Scroll to Top