To ensure all our players are developing strong softball fundamentals—no matter which team they’re on—please use these drills as the foundation for your practices. By reinforcing the same core skills, concepts, and key terms each season, we help the girls build confidence and progress more consistently year after year.
Key Takeaways and Suggestions
For Head Coach (or Practice Leader), and Assistant Coaches:
- Make efficient use of your time. Teach through positive reinforcement.
Come to practice with a plan that you share with your other coaches, and try to communicate before handhand to discuss the plan
Plan to arrive 10 minutes early to set up for drills, or having someone on your team volunteering to help you do that.
Consider creating a “fun” bag of things like badminton rackets, frisbees, lacrosse sticks, football and different balls (maybe families can donate?) and encourage girls that arrive early to play with them. (instead of them sitting on bench on their phones)
For 6/8/10U, attention span is at a minimum, so the more drills and the more fun you can make them the better
- Players should learn mainly through seeing and doing the drills and creating muscle memory, not by a lot of pre-instruction (goes in one ear and out the other)
Starting Practice: Consider forgetting about partner tossing to start practice (it's too hard,especially for 6 and 8U as they end up just playing fetch - the drills will teach catching and throwing much better)
Consider starting with mobile stretching drills like leg kids and skipping to get them moving their bodies.
Baserunning Drills/Warm Ups: -
Great Drill: Rabbit and Turtle similar to https://www.youtube.com/shorts/hww6yy_Awy4 (except they were just going to first base and running through the bag)
Lead Off drill :
https://drive.google.com/file/d/18l4h87hmbQBGmSVLz6tagmFi56p05jFN/view?usp=drive_link
Defense/Fielding/Catching Throwing:
- Break your defensive practice into drill stations, depending on how many coaches you have.
- Emphasize game speed.
Some examples
Throwing drills at a target: Get girls throwing hard and they will learn how to throw on their own. Many variations. (2:07 of Tony Medina’s video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKepeD8jcno
Short Dives (on grass)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fvWg8rC6zqQ-0dAgRirliimFXH50hTQb/view?usp=sharing
Charge Turn to Third: https://drive.google.com/file/d/12i5yf5XN-QMC4Dq4N7j7w0MW5Sd6aE05/view?usp=sharing
Bloopers and Grounders: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aW98d7WUhY9XkgCgt49eWiaM3Ln3cZP3/view?usp=sharing
Line Drive Throwing Drill: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kKMaAZkV_lZmv-50UT710XhweFH5JUiV/view?usp=sharing
Kneel and Diving Diving Drill (should be on grass)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KghBRcVUbg36kuFrseZuA5snPE-bx1tj/view?usp=sharing