Incorporating pitching into 10u rec practice?

[CoachJD]

Curious if anyone has thoughts or good ideas. How do I incorporate pitching into my practice plans?

Taking over a 10u rec team (rec level play but travel around the county). League is kid pitch, but no walks so when it gets to 4 balls (routinely), the coach comes into pitch. Team is a mix of experience and brand new. Once the season starts (April 2) we will have a single 90-minute practice per week. I'm trying to get the team together 4 times before the season starts though, 90 minutes at a time.

I have 4-5 assistants which is great for stations and drills. My plan for practices 1 and 2 is to focus almost exclusively on fundamentals; practices 3 and 4 will incorporate position specifics and game situations. However, I assume the weather will cancel at least one practice and I can't guarantee the team will all show up for a session (otherwise I'd set aside one whole practice for hitting work).

With so much focus needed on fundamentals and basic game situations, any ideas for incorporating pitching work? There are 2 girls returning from last season that were ok (generous) pitchers but everyone else will be starting from scratch.

Thanks

Can you keep pitchers (and catchers) an extra half hour?

I don't do P&C during team practice even at the HS level. No time, limited space, and all my pitchers play other positions/hit. P&C do their thing either before or after practice. Unless your pitchers are pitching to hitters, and I think that's a bad idea in your situation, make additional time for them. The extra half hour won't be a big deal to a kid (and her parents) who is committed to a position that's going to require a lot of extra work.

 

[Caredeocr]

Thanks again for all of the replies. Keeping Pitchers and Catchers after practice is probably not realistic. Practice gets over at 6:45 and some have a 20-30 minute drive home so I don't think parents will be interested in that. Some have taken a few lessons here or there.

It is a relatively competitive rec league but pitching is either good or awful, no in-between, which makes the games very slow (3 innings usually, 4 by exception). Although we only field one 10u team, we play other towns that field 3-4, and some of those play both rec and travel. We were a very good team (relatively speaking) at 8u but a lot of that didn't translate to 10u during their first season last year (I stayed with the 8u team). I've convinced a handful of folks to help as assistants so practices will be focused a lot on small groups, stations, and drills. I want the kids constantly doing something.

Also going to be balancing, or attempting to, building skills sets and having the kids try different positions, with actually putting some kids in the right positions. No more playing 1B just because it seems fun, if you can't catch/stop the ball, not going to have you play there.

 

[blsub]

I coach 10u rec ball as well and have also found it hard to get time for pitching and catching practice. Fortunately this season our team also gets cage time each week along with field time. This is when I plan to get pitching practice in. I kind of look at no-walk rec ball as a start. My daughter pitched last spring, poorly, but really enjoyed it, so now she gets pitching lessons. If any girl likes it, encourage the parents to find lessons because repetition of fundamentals is the best way to improve.