As a coach for a 5- 7 yr. old girls [tag]softball[/tag] All-Star team, I found one of the problems that we were having was that our girls were slowing down before they got to 1st base. Try these [tag]free softball drills[/tag] that we came up with to correct this.
We demonstrated running through 1st base then curving out towards the 1st base dugout. Here is how the drill goes.
The girls line up in batting order & pretend to hit, but really a coach throws the ball to the pitcher(another coach or helper). The batter is to run full speed through 1st base, quickly break down facing the 1st base dugout & look for the ball.
If the pitcher overthrew the ball to the first baseman(another coach or helper) and they see it on the ground, they immediately turn & run to second. If the 1st baseman caught the ball & they don’t see the ball then they return to 1st base (if they weren’t out).
Our pitcher & 1st baseman are instructed to have some complete throws & some overthrows, so each runner will have to look & think about what they need to do.
This turned out to be a more difficult softball drill than we thought, with only about 1/4 of our girls able to do this the first time we practiced it. More of the girls eventually began to catch on each time we practiced this baserunning drill.