Learning plays and positions

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May 1, 2018
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This is rec ball and I am one of three assistant coaches. Head coach is more of a manager and let's the three assistant coaches run practice. We have been practicing twice a week for 1.5 hours. Generally do 0.5 hours of warm ups and throwing drills and then an hour of practice on the field. Sometimes with the coach hitting balls, other times with the girls hitting off a pitching machine. I'm focusing my learning a bit more around 2nd base since my DD is trying to win that spot, but I do need to learn the other positions. DD and I practice on our own as school/work allow. Games start next week on Tuesday and Thursday so unfortunately practices will drop off to almost none. I'll send you my email.

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At a 10u rec level: Every ball hit to 2nd needs to be an out. Everytime. Once she gets older it will be footwork and timing. Ball in and out of the glove quickly. Right now I would focus on good fielding and solid, accurate throws.
 
Jul 16, 2013
4,659
113
Pennsylvania
The main thing to learn at that age. Force vs no force. Ball, base, and then backup. Bunt coverage.
Also with a runner on 2 and 3rd with less than two outs and the ball is hit to 3rd....do you want her to throw it and potentially score two or hold the runners and have a force everywhere. Depends on the level of 3rd, first and Catcher.

I agree with this. I was watching a rec game a couple of weeks ago. Ball hit to outfield, shortstop covering second for throw coming in. Runner going for double. Throw from outfield was wide. Shortstop tried to keep her foot on the base and leaned as far as she could to reach the ball. Got by her. Of course no one was backing her up, so the runner ended up scoring. I see a lot of younger players feel they need to keep their foot on the base regardless of the situation and regardless of where the throw is.

I always ask my players to think about two things before each pitch. If the ball is hit to me, where do I throw it? And if the ball isn't hit to me, where do I go? The next step is then to teach them how to modify this when necessary. I saw the perfect situation earlier this summer at a tournament. We had the bases loaded with one out. Other team played in planning to come home for the force. Ball was hit to the 2nd baseman who bobbled the ball. Our runner had a great break. 2b still decided to throw the ball home but the play wasn't even close. Now we still have the bases loaded plus we scored. At that point 2b should have cut her losses and took the simple out at first. Sometimes those things take a little while for younger players to understand, but it is something we worked on constantly. I was very surprised to see this happen at an 18u tournament...

Also, when I coached at that level, I felt my job was teaching the game, more so then winning. My philosophy was that if my players were able to perform on the field, the winning would happen. So we did some basic practice things; grounders, fly balls, hitting, etc. But we always reserved 30 minutes per practice to focus on something in particular. One practice we would work specifically on outfield drills. One practice would be middle infield with footwork around 2nd base. One practice would be corner infield. One practice would be nothing but bunt coverage. One practice would be about back up responsibilities. One practice would be about fly ball / pop up hierarchy. Etc. You get the idea. At the earlier ages I wanted every player to be able to play every position. Or at least be trained to play every position. As they started getting older, we began to focus more on individual positions.


Edited to add: You may also want to look into "Coach's Guide to Game Winning Softball Drills" by Michelle Smith. It is available on Amazon for less than $15. I have a copy that I used at 10u and 12u.
 
Last edited:
Feb 21, 2017
198
28
I agree with this. I was watching a rec game a couple of weeks ago. Ball hit to outfield, shortstop covering second for throw coming in. Runner going for double. Throw from outfield was wide. Shortstop tried to keep her foot on the base and leaned as far as she could to reach the ball. Got by her. Of course no one was backing her up, so the runner ended up scoring. I see a lot of younger players feel they need to keep their foot on the base regardless of the situation and regardless of where the throw is.

...

Also, when I coached at that level, I felt my job was teaching the game, more so then winning. My philosophy was that if my players were able to perform on the field, the winning would happen. So we did some basic practice things; grounders, fly balls, hitting, etc. But we always reserved 30 minutes per practice to focus on something in particular. One practice we would work specifically on outfield drills. One practice would be middle infield with footwork around 2nd base. One practice would be corner infield. One practice would be nothing but bunt coverage. One practice would be about back up responsibilities. One practice would be about fly ball / pop up hierarchy. Etc. You get the idea. At the earlier ages I wanted every player to be able to play every position. Or at least be trained to play every position. As they started getting older, we began to focus more on individual positions.

I gave OP some stuff. All teams are different as kids learn at different rates but generally I did what FP26 mentioned.

For newer coaches temper your expectations with level of play and age. You have a set time to finish a job, choose what you want accomplish. If I give you 2 weeks to work on your house you are not going to build a new house. You are going to build foundations or add to existing ones.

At recreation and younger levels you lay groundwork and the key is not to get too caught up in advance stuff. In FP26 example the outfield to SS throw could not be executed so no need to worry about a cutoff. First get the ball.

IMO with a recreation team everyone is equal (learn to play everywhere) and the goals should be simple like; make the outs that are supposed to be made, be good base runners (easy for everyone to learn and helps team look good), provide a general understand of who should make the play so they don’t run into each other with the ball dropping (ball priorities), teach them to swing at strikes, provide a general understanding of what to do when the ball is or isn’t hit to them & how to position so they don’t get hurt and most important learn to play catch properly. If the team does well with those move on but walk then run.

It should go without saying but it should be fun.

Nice to see people get involved and want to help the kids. The smiles are very rewarding, I miss it.

CoC


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