High School Softball

[Cannonball]

We start on Monday. I can't wait. I don't know how good we will be but I know we have some hard chargers. Many of these girls hit with me over last summer and so, they have taken those drills and have made sure that in open cage, the other girls were introduced to those drills. That will give us a huge step forward. BTW on Friday of this past week, two seniors sign their letters of intent and so, every senior but one has committed somewhere. The one is injured and may not play in HS. That is pretty good for a small HS like ours.

 

[Greenmonsters]

Question for you? What do you do when you have good, fast pitching and the HS catcher is very inexperienced at catching, especially in receiving and blocking movement pitches? Freshman pitcher DD is playing JV and my fear is it could be a long season without a competent, travel ball type catcher. In fact, DD (who hasn't played catcher since rec league (9yo?) may be asked to catch the #2 pitcher when DD isn't pitching.

You throw your movement pitches before you get in a possible D3K situation and then you hope your C can catch the heat. Either the catcher will improve or she won't.

 

[55dad]

Question for you? What do you do when you have good, fast pitching and the HS catcher is very inexperienced at catching, especially in receiving and blocking movement pitches? Freshman pitcher DD is playing JV and my fear is it could be a long season without a competent, travel ball type catcher. In fact, DD (who hasn't played catcher since rec league (9yo?) may be asked to catch the #2 pitcher when DD isn't pitching.

Grab your best athlete and make her a catcher! We have four girls (9-12) who can catch on Varsity/JV at a small HS and I made an 8th-grader catch 2 innings of dome-ball yesterday. Those girls would also be our best everywhere else in the field (except pitcher) but you will have an ugly season without a competent catcher behind the plate.

 

[Rocketech1]

Update: DD played her first high school game today and won 34-0 (not a typo) and combined with another pitcher to pitch a perfect game. She also was 5-5 plus 2 walks at the plate. This was a non-league game and the competition will get a lot tougher but was a nice start to the season. The catcher did ok with only a couple un-caught third strikes.

 

[BobInMadison]

Update: DD played her first high school game today and won 34-0 (not a typo) and combined with another pitcher to pitch a perfect game. She also was 5-5 plus 2 walks at the plate. This was a non-league game and the competition will get a lot tougher but was a nice start to the season. The catcher did ok with only a couple un-caught third strikes.

Better luck next time.

 

[rdbass]

DD played her first high school game today and won 34-0

Did the other team at least make a first down......

 

[Cannonball]

First night of tryouts and 22 girls came out. That is a little depressing since we were hoping for at least 25. We will have to make cuts even with these low numbers. One young lady was hit a couple of times trying to catch fly balls. She has never played before. We had great effort and a lot of carryover from last year. We mostly focused on defense on day one and tonight will have a longer focus on hitting. Last night we set up 2 front toss stations so that I could see the players hit moving balls and did a couple of other stations that, imo, demonstrate some basic abilities. Those would include the stork drill off of a tee, a "whip hit" station, SNF station, ... Tonight, we will add a couple of more.

BTW, we purchased a Cam Bat. Have any of you used one of these? I am intrigued and liked the results when I took some swings.

 

[Il softball fan]

DDs team had 18 show up for day 1. I suspect a few of those will drop off before the first game ever gets here. Cannonball, haven't checked the schedule yet, but we look forward to the annual butt kicking by your team lol. I wish DD's school had someone who could teach hitting like you. Very impressive to watch last year.

 

[CoogansBluff]

Update: DD played her first high school game today and won 34-0 (not a typo) and combined with another pitcher to pitch a perfect game. She also was 5-5 plus 2 walks at the plate. This was a non-league game and the competition will get a lot tougher but was a nice start to the season. The catcher did ok with only a couple un-caught third strikes.

My DD started last season 0-for-7. Would kill for a 5-for-5 out of the gate this spring.

I must ask, however - How did your team wind up with a non-league game that could result in 34-0? I realize the mandatory league games can't be helped. Just wondered what went into the scheduling. Of course, some HS teams can go from playoffs to pathetic in 1 year if the right player (pitcher) graduates.

 

[Cannonball]

DDs team had 18 show up for day 1. I suspect a few of those will drop off before the first game ever gets here. Cannonball, haven't checked the schedule yet, but we look forward to the annual butt kicking by your team lol. I wish DD's school had someone who could teach hitting like you. Very impressive to watch last year.

I owe your dd and the coaching staff an apology. I was asked to come up and work with some of your hitters this last open cage you had. I didn't get back with Coach on that. I had not counted on us having so much to do with our field. We had screens stolen, our cage had major holes that had to be repaired, ... It was a mess and so, I didn't make it up there. OH, some of those screens were found and I had to repair them and, believe it or not, some were found in the bathroom. I don't know how they get out when we lock all of them up in our storage area.