In zone defence, the basic idea is to mark space rather than players. The zone is divided into three levels, the cup, the mid and the deep. The cup is the main part of the zone. There are three positions in the cup; point, left mark and right mark.
The point makes all the calls in the cup and will decide who should mark (although it will never be himself). Usually he will force center. The person on the mark puts on a usual mark, the point stands directly downfield of the thrower, and the other mark stands across from the thrower on the side he is being forced. The cup follow the disc for the whole point. It is important that the cup stays as a unit. If there is one player faster (or fresher) than the rest then there is no point in running faster coz even if he does get across the field faster, he cannot make a one man cup!
Behind the cup are the mids. Again there are three positions in the mid, mid-mid, left-mid and right-mid. Usually there will be gaps in the cup which the mid mid should try to cover. If somebody tries to crash the cup (a receiver coming into the cup), then the mid mid must shout “CRASH” to alert the cup.
The two wings, left-mid and right-mid, are mainly responsible for cutting out the wings on the offence. They usually come in when the disc is swung across the pitch. It is as close as one-on-one coverage there is in a zone defence. One other thing that wings can do, is to move a little closer to the third handler when the disc is on the other side of the pitch. In the above example, the handler might be tempted to throw a cross pitch thro to the right handler. If the defender on that side is alert, he could make an interception. Also, even pretending to look for the interception early in that match, will most likely deter a handler from ever looking to make the cross field throw for the rest of the game.
The last player in the zone is the deep. The deep is not likely to be near the disc if the rest of the zone is doing its job. The deep does however have the best view of the game as every player is in front of him. He should use this to communicate with everybody else on the team, especially the mids who often lose players behind them. Shouts life “left shoulder” and “right shoulder” will tell a mid that a player is making a cut to his left or right.
One very useful add-on to the three man cup is the line trap. If called at the correct time, it can surprise an offence and make it virtually impossible to get a make percentage pass.
As can be seen in this scenario, the disc is on the left wing. The point player in the cup is on the mark, with the right mark dropping off and the left mark, marking the dump one-on-one. The person with the disc in this scenario has three options, none of which sound very nice. The first is the only person who is open, the right handler. But if the mark is good, then he will be forced to extend fully or throw a hammer to complete the pass. The second alternative is an outside-in throw up the line to the left mid. This is likely to be intercepted by either the deep who has cheated over or the mid defender. The final alternative is to throw a floating pass to the back of their own end zone to the dump.
This play is most likely going to be called when the wind is going from right to left, so the first two options are virtually impossible. This marking scenario (the point putting on the mark) is only going to be for one pass, when it reverts back to a usual cup.