How Many Players Are on a Lacrosse Team?

The number of players on a lacrosse team depends on which version you are watching. In men’s field lacrosse, each side has 10 players on the field at once, three attackers, three midfielders, three defenders and one goalkeeper. Women’s field lacrosse fields 12 players a side, and box (indoor) lacrosse uses only 6.

Those figures cover how many are actually playing at any moment; a full squad carries more so teams can substitute. Here is the complete breakdown by format and level, including how the men’s ten split into positions and how big rosters really get.

On-field numbers by format

Lacrosse comes in three main forms, and each sets its own on-field count. The table below summarizes them.

Version	Players on the field	Breakdown
Men’s field lacrosse	10	3 attack, 3 midfield, 3 defense, 1 goalkeeper
Women’s field lacrosse	12	Field players plus a goalkeeper, different rules
Box (indoor) lacrosse	6	5 runners plus 1 goalkeeper

The men’s field game is the version most people picture, and its ten players occupy clearly defined roles. Attackers stay on the offensive half and specialize in scoring, midfielders cover the whole field playing both offense and defense, defenders protect their own goal (often with longer sticks), and the goalkeeper guards the crease. To dig into how those roles function in live play, see our lacrosse rules for beginners.

Why women’s and box lacrosse differ

Women’s field lacrosse uses 12 players because the game is built around a different, lower-contact style with more emphasis on positioning and spacing, which the extra players support. The rules governing contact, sticks and restarts differ significantly from the men’s game.

Box lacrosse takes the opposite approach. Played indoors on a smaller enclosed floor, often a converted hockey rink, it squeezes the game down to six per side: five runners and a goalie. The tighter space makes it faster and more physical, and the reduced numbers are essential to keeping the floor from becoming overcrowded. Our comparison of box lacrosse vs field lacrosse covers how these formats diverge in detail.

Roster sizes beyond the field

The players on the field are only part of a team. Because midfielders rotate on and off constantly, and because injuries and fatigue are part of a long season, squads carry many more players than they use at once.

At the youth and high-school level, rosters commonly run from about 15 to 25 players, enough to substitute freely and cover absences. College programs are larger: Division I men’s teams typically carry somewhere around 45 to 50 players, with the exact number shaped by scholarship and NCAA rules that have changed in recent years. Women’s college rosters tend to be a little smaller. The constant is that far more players belong to the team than the 10, 12 or 6 on the field at any given moment.

The minimum to play

To begin a game a team needs its full on-field complement, and critically that includes a goalkeeper, since no side wants to leave the crease undefended. Games can and do continue with fewer players when penalties send offenders to the penalty box, creating “man-down” situations that the other team tries to exploit, but that is a temporary penalty state rather than a legal starting lineup.

The short version: a lacrosse team has 10 players on the field in the men’s game, 12 in the women’s game and 6 in box lacrosse, with the men’s ten split into three attackers, three midfielders, three defenders and a goalkeeper. Full rosters are much larger, from roughly 15 to 25 at youth level up to around 45 to 50 for Division I men’s college teams.