Competitive End-of-practice Drills

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Jun 6, 2016
2,714
113
Chicago
Anybody have any good, fun, competitive drills/games to do at the end of practice.

I've found our girls do a lot better when they're competing against each other, so I try to end every practice with something that gets those competitive juices flowing. Ideally, the games also work on a couple softball skills (they also seem to learn better when they're not focusing so hard on learning...funny how that works).

So, what do you use? I have a handful of good ones, but we've been practicing for 3+ weeks and I'm starting to get repetitive so I want to mix it up.
 
May 16, 2016
1,024
113
Illinois
We use the running drill where you line up half the team at second base and the other half at home plate and they race. You can also add agility ladders in the base path to change things up a little, the coaches have also added little 12" hurdles in the base paths so things don't get stale.

Ground balls to SS, field the ball throw to first. If you pull the first baseman (usually a coach) off the bag or miss the ground ball you are out of the competition. Not the biggest fan of this drill because I can't stand watching 11 other girls standing in line, at least it is the end of practice.

Ground ball agility drill- set up 6 agility cones near SS, put a softball on top of five of the cones, the sixth cone is just used as a starting point roughly 10 feet behind the other agility cones. The fielder has to grab a ball off of one of the agility cones, make a good throw to first base, run back to the starting point and touch that cone, repeat this process until all the balls have been thrown to first base and the runner is finally done when she touches the agility cone that is setup for a starting spot. We use a stop watch since this drill is timed, for every bad throw to first base we add 2 seconds to their time. In case there is confusion the balls are just sitting on the agility cones, we don't roll the balls but you can if you prefer.

Hot potato competition drill- Half the team lines up at 1st base the other half at 3rd base, setup some balls right by the pitchers mound (1 ball for each player in line). The first person in each line has to run towards the pitchers mound pick up the ball and throw the ball to their team at first base or 3rd base, if the ball gets away they have to go fetch it. Once the person at first catches the ball they have drop that ball in bucket and go get another ball from the pitchers mound. Repeat this process until everyone has had a turn.

Relay drill- Spit the team in half again. Line them up in a straight line about 50' apart and they practice relay throws from one end of the line to the other. Have them go back and forth a couple times. We usually setup agility cones so the players know where to stand. Feel free to make the distances farther if your girls are older, the girls on my daughter's are 10u.
 
Aug 23, 2016
359
43
DD's coaches have three go-to drills:

1. Half the team lines up at home, the other half at second, and they run a relay around the bases.

2. Last girl standing - one pitch, hit and continue or miss and sit down. (Sometimes a player is allowed back in if they catch a hit ball.)

3. Put a bucket on another bucket at home plate. Line the girls up at short. Hit grounders to the girls and have them throw to home. First to knock the top bucket off is the winner.

This is for an 8u team.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
 
Jun 6, 2016
2,714
113
Chicago
DD's coaches have three go-to drills:

1. Half the team lines up at home, the other half at second, and they run a relay around the bases.

2. Last girl standing - one pitch, hit and continue or miss and sit down. (Sometimes a player is allowed back in if they catch a hit ball.)

3. Put a bucket on another bucket at home plate. Line the girls up at short. Hit grounders to the girls and have them throw to home. First to knock the top bucket off is the winner.

This is for an 8u team.

We do a variation on the bucket game and they love it. We split them into two teams and keep score (we subtract points for a missed catch, a point for hitting the bucket on a bounce, two points for knocking the top bucket off clean).

I really like games where we can split them into smaller teams. That gets them cheering each other on, helps build that bond. The trick is to make sure they don't default into the same groups each time.
 

TMD

Feb 18, 2016
433
43
DD's coaches have three go-to drills:

1. Half the team lines up at home, the other half at second, and they run a relay around the bases.

2. Last girl standing - one pitch, hit and continue or miss and sit down. (Sometimes a player is allowed back in if they catch a hit ball.)

3. Put a bucket on another bucket at home plate. Line the girls up at short. Hit grounders to the girls and have them throw to home. First to knock the top bucket off is the winner.

This is for an 8u team.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

We'll sometimes do a variation of #1. Still split team into two groups, home and second, but runner has a ball and runs 3 bases (home-3rd or 2nd-1st depending on the team) and then makes a throw from that 3rd base to the next person in their line. Team wins when they can catch up to and tag the runner from the other team...teams that lose almost always do so because of a bad throw.
 
Mar 7, 2012
144
0
PA
We always tell our girls if they practice hard they get a competition at the end. We keep track of winners and every month the winner gets recognition. Some have 1 winner some have points for accomplishing a task.

1. Put a ball on a tee, we put the tee in a position and the goal is to knock the ball off (we started with a regular size outside ball from dollar store than progressively got smaller once they got better.We put it at home and the girls in the OF throw/hit them a fly ball, or in the infield and hit them and they make throw sometimes we put the tee at 1st or 3rd. Each time you hit the ball its a point.

2. Knock Out - Line they up put a coach across. They have to field without bobbles and make a good throw if they do they are in if not they are out.

3. Wall Knockout - when we are indoors we do this game against a wall they throw person behind them fields, if you miss or bobble or throw outside the boundaries your out. Our girls get really intense during this version and purposely try to throw on harsh angles to get the girl behind them out. Which in turn has turned into my girls figuring out how to field those angles and laying out for balls. Simple way to teach them to dive for ball my girls have no fear doing it anymore (sometimes not a good thing, we have had more than one player almost slide into a wall because they dont want to be out).

4. Hitting - We put the nets up the middle, we start at a short distance (pitchers mound) they get one it off the tee has to be a line drive and touch the net, if they do its a point, than move net back we go 1/2 way between mound and second repeat this round is worth 2 point, than back to 2nd base worth 3 point and last in the OF worth 4. Sometimes we move the nets to RF side/LF side to work on going with or turning on a pitch

5. thunder Ball - split into 2 teams. One team is offense they get one hit each soft toss. Other team is fielders (a player starts in OF at a specific spot, than one player on 1st & 3rd) players rotate in. Once the ball is hit the player in the OF must sprint to the Pitchers Circle other other 2 have to field the ball and throw it in (to make it harder we say player in the circle cannot leave the circle to try and catch a ball thrown in). It helps with taking proper angle to ball, relay throws, communication. Meanwhile the batter is running the base the number of bases they touch before ball is in circle is the points they get. We also say if you pop a ball up and its caught your team loses a point. Team with most points win.

6. Bunt Game - We draw lines in the dirt. each sector is worth different points. This is used to try and teach a girl where a good bunt should be placed. They each get a certain number of pitches than we add their score. ( after they go used to it we added additional rules, popping a bunt up or missing a bunt lost points
 
Feb 3, 2010
5,752
113
Pac NW
I really like the idea of using competition in progressions:
1) Practice the skill in drill with 100% focus on form
2) Add elements of challenge: timed, number of perfect reps in a row, total number of perfect reps, team competition, etc

Here's some ideas:
https://www.discussfastpitch.com/coaching-softball/15159-practice-competition-drills.html

Side note:
Like Gambler Bob and CoachJD mentioned, I try to avoid long lines like the plague to maximize reps. For example, take Lighting's drill #1 and put 2-3 girls on every base vs 5-6 on two bases. In game #3, use two coaches with two buckets hitting to 2 lines--one at short and one at 2nd. I hate seeing a whole team stand around watching/waiting while one girl and the coach get in reps (usually while two more coaches stand off to the side and chat.) The one coach feels productive because he/she is active, chatting and getting in a ton of reps. Watch a couple practices and count the reps each individual gets. Once you do the math it becomes eye opening how inefficient some practices can be. Even pregame warm ups can be improved with 3-4 stations.
 
Last edited:
Jun 1, 2015
500
43
My 16U team does what we call the "Hitting Game" every other practice. One batter at a time, rest of girls in regular positions. Each batter gets 5 side-tossed pitches.
> If they hit cleanly past the infield - 1 point.
> It they hit cleanly past the closest outfielder - 2 points.
> If an infielder fields the ball and makes a simulated out to 1st - 0 points.
> If an infielder/outfielder makes an error in their play on the ball - 1 (penalty) point.

After 5 pitches, the 6th is LIVE. Once hit, the batter runs the bases trying to get as far SAFELY as possible while the defense tries to get her out. Each base the batter touches multiplies her total score by the base. (e.g. 5 points followed by a double = 10 points). If the defense gets her out at any time, she loses all of her points. Then we rotate in a pre-designed order.

They LOVE THIS GAME because they want to get each other out, since our prize is NO non-drill running (no big lap, no end laps, etc) for the entire next practice for that player. There's a good chunk on the line.
 
May 13, 2012
599
18
Older girls we did last man standing. Don't like the long line but really haven't seen or thought how to do it better. Front toss from coach behind net. I make a challenge, drive to right, pull down 3rd line, bunt to specific spot etc. Each has a chance to acomplish hitting task thru entire line up. Allowed to wait for aproperiate pitch but only Allowed one swing. Swing and do whats asked go to back of line for nxt challenge, fail grab glove and go field your position until one person left and is last man standing.
 

JAD

Feb 20, 2012
8,231
38
Georgia
Not exactly what you are looking for, but back when DD was playing 12U at the end of practice we would set up a cardboard box on top of a bucket at home plate. The box was approximately the size of the strike zone. Each pitcher would get 5 pitches (we had 2 pitchers). The team would start with 10 "poles" to end practice. For each pitch that hit the box, it took one "pole" off. This helps teach your pitchers to throw strikes under pressure and the team gets a little conditioning at the same time.
 

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