By guest author: Marc Dagenais
Although it may not look as cool as a homerun, or as exciting a fastpitch, you should also work on developing your team's bunting skills.
As you probably know already, bunting is important in certain game situations wherein you have to keep the ball away from fielders while hitting it inside fair territory. This includes plays where in you have to sacrifice your batter to let a baserunner proceed to the next base or the home plate.
So here are some drills that will help improve your team's bunting skills.
Practicing Different Bunting Types
If you want your players to practice basic bunting or several types of bunting all at once, here's a drill that would do it:
There should be two players in this drill, a hitter and a tosser. The tosser should position herself 25 ft. from the batter. The tosser throws ten balls at the hitter, one at a time. Each ball could be hit with a specific type of bunt or hit with different types, depending on the goal of the practice.
The tosser and hitter would then trade places after ten balls are thrown. You can also choose to group your players in several groups so all of them can practice bunting at once.
Practicing Bunting Accuracy
You should also develop your team's bunting accuracy to a specific area in the field. That way, they would be trained to bunt the ball towards a safe zone, out of the foul line and out of reach of the fielders.
In this drill, a rope is placed 15 ft. from the home plate and in a semicircle stretching from one sideline to the other. A pitcher and a catcher should be in their defensive positions. With the pitcher should be a full bucket of balls while the catcher with an empty one.
The hitters are positioned at the home plate where they get two chances at bunting the ball inside the rope. A successful bunt means the hitter will go to the 1st base. But missing two bunts means she will have to run to all bases and return to the home plate.
Runner on Second Base
This is the most common game situation wherein bunting is used. A hitter bunts the ball to give the runner on the 2nd base enough time to run to the 3rd
In this drill, this situation is simulated with a hitter, a baserunner on the 2nd and basemen on all bases. You should then position yourself on the mound behind the L-shaped screen to throw the ball or feed the pitching machine. The hitter would then bunt the ball to the right side of the field to allow the baserunner to advance to the 3rd base.
Want more softball drills to practice your team's bunting? Well, why don't you check out my website at www.Softballperformance.com/? I've got tons of drills on bunting, hitting, throwing, plus coaching tips for you. See you there!
Marc Dagenais is a Softball Peak Performance Coach that helps softball players turn their athletic talent into extraordinary performances and help coaches get more out of their players, turn their struggling team around or get an edge over their opponents. Visit us to sign-up to get our FREE softball pitching tips!
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Marc_Dagenais
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