first year 12u needs some help

Welcome to Discuss Fastpitch

Your FREE Account is waiting to the Best Softball Community on the Web.

May 6, 2015
2,397
113
DDs new team played second tournament Sat (one day), in one game she had two opportunities to catch extremely short but pretty high pop ups (both were borderline fair foul, betweeen 4-10 feet down 1b line), both pretty high up, so coming down pretty fast. She popped nicely on both and was in position, both hit her mitt, but both came out (wish I had video).

I think what needs to happen is to open up the mitt as much as possible (hard to do for her, smaller hands, and it is a pretty hefty mitt for her, but she needed the protection, AS CMW3000). Second, I think she needs to get the mitt to as little of an angle as possible, ie parallel to ground. it seemed the lip of the web (which is very substantial, and kind of curled in over mitt) was preventing ball from getting all the way into mitt, and it skipped down to the ground. batter reached each time. she felt horrible. coaches handled it well, and it seems one who does most of the work with catchers was showing her exactly what I said above after the inning behind the dugout.

Any other tips and tricks, besides basket catching? she made this play last spring, but that was with 11", I think 12" are not getting into mitt as easy.
 
May 24, 2013
12,461
113
So Cal
Practice pop ups a lot. This is an important skill for catchers to work on. For drill work, I set myself up behind the catcher, and tell them if it's a RH or LH batter. On "go", I toss the ball up, varying height and location. The RH/LH batter tells them which way to turn as they hunt down the ball. A RH batter will tend to pop foul to the right (1B) side of the field, and a LH batter to the left (3B) side. Turning the correct way is something they need to practice until it's instinctual.
 
May 1, 2018
659
63
Turn around. So she is facing home. That will make the spin in her favor. two hands while your learning.
 
May 6, 2015
2,397
113
she is popping and locating and tracking ball OK (more work on this would not hurt though), trouble is she is not getting it to stick in her mitt. she is under, looking up at it, hits lip of the web, and skids down the rest of her mitt to ground. each time i was certain she had it, it all looked perfect except the ball skipping out of her mitt.
 
Last edited:
May 6, 2015
2,397
113
Turn around. So she is facing home. That will make the spin in her favor. two hands while your learning.

thanks! hadn't thought of that, will work on this when we can. on ones where she does not have time to get around facing the backstop, should she basket it?
 
May 24, 2013
12,461
113
So Cal
Good that she's locating, tracking, and positioning herself well, but it sounds to me like she needs more practice in catching balls on a pop fly trajectory, which is why I suggested the drill work above.
 
May 6, 2015
2,397
113
Good that she's locating, tracking, and positioning herself well, but it sounds to me like she needs more practice in catching balls on a pop fly trajectory, which is why I suggested the drill work above.

thanks, I guess it is the difference between the popfly balls she has been used too and practiced (ie for OF) and the super high pops that a C or P might face. she has not really faced or practiced these to this point (some weaker ones only, where getting to it before it hit ground was the biggest factor), and she (and I ) just assumed it was like a regular pop fly, and that is how she played it.
 
May 24, 2013
12,461
113
So Cal
If you have access to a pitching machine, another thing you can do is set the machine to fire almost straight up, and adjust the speed to give you the desired height. The machine will give some simulation for the spin coming off a bat that you can't really get by throwing the ball. This is actually valuable work for IFs and Ps, too.
 
May 1, 2018
659
63
thanks! hadn't thought of that, will work on this when we can. on ones where she does not have time to get around facing the backstop, should she basket it?

IMO never. She just needs to get that other hand in there.
 
May 6, 2015
2,397
113
If you have access to a pitching machine, another thing you can do is set the machine to fire almost straight up, and adjust the speed to give you the desired height. The machine will give some simulation for the spin coming off a bat that you can't really get by throwing the ball. This is actually valuable work for IFs and Ps, too.

good idea, I will try this if I can find some time on a pitching machine other than in tunnel.
 

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
42,830
Messages
679,481
Members
21,445
Latest member
Bmac81802
Top