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Jun 6, 2016
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Glad to see you are putting a priority on aggressive base running. I want my runners trying to get 120' (2B's) at a time. No station to station baserunning. At the highest TB and College level you will see balls hit into the OF in front of a lazy player and that speedster is standing on 2B. I wouldn't have believed if I hadn't seen it with my two eyes last summer. Impact Gold player hit a high fly ball that lands in front of the CF. Runner is sliding into 2B. Wow! That's how ya do it.

I have tried to instill that every hit to the outfield should be a double unless they hold you to a single. We don't really have the athletes to actually take that extra base often, but there have been many times where there was a slight bobble or hesitation or throw that was a bit off and if our runner had been going hard out of the box and around first, she could've gotten to second.

We've started occasionally having the runner go to second on a walk with a runner on third. We've had a couple thrown out (the run did score, at least), but they're starting to get the idea. That play isn't always available against better teams, but it's more about getting our girls to always be ready to take the extra base than anything else.

In an important game, my best base runner got to third on a dropped third strike because she hustled out of the box, forced the catcher to rush a throw, and didn't slow down as the ball rolled down the RF line. And... nobody cared that she struck out. She certainly didn't. It wasn't a triple, but it may as well have been (and, psychologically, it probably hurt the other team more because a triple is a triple. This should have been an out that turned into three bases).

The focus on base running really helped. We won our summer league championship on a walk-off hit. The girl on second was my slowest player. Maybe the slowest runner I've ever had at the HS level. She's a smart base runner though. She got a big lead (big for her, anyway), took off on contact on the ground ball up the middle, and was clearly thinking home all the way. The ball ended up going through the CF's legs so there was no play, but I'm certain that before this summer, she would've been thinking about getting to third and stopping. I have no doubt running hard (she was reaching third as the ball was getting to the CF) forced the CF to rush the play and miss the ball.
 

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