Special thanks to Amanda and Jennifer for sending these in. If you’re searching with [tag]free softball practice drills[/tag], you MUST try these out!
From Amanda…
We call this [tag]softball[/tag] [tag]drill[/tag] Popcorn.
I have my girls stand in pairs. One girl has three balls in their hands and the other gets ready to catch the [tag]pop flies[/tag]. As soon as the first one is caught the next one is in the air in the opposite direction.
You can’t let any of them hit the ground. After a little while they can throw the balls a little quicker.
My girls like to make it a competition to see who can do it the longest before they let a ball hit the ground. This helps them with changing their direction and judgment of how deep the ball is going.
From Jennifer…
This is probably not a new drill but something that the girls at my clinics love to do. Since we are using the space in batting cages we are limited with how much we can do and who we can throw to.
After we have warmed up our arms and have taken some ground ball practice, I set up a tee with a ball on top (usually at it’s highest position but can be varied depending on where you want the ball). As I hit ground balls, the girls need to [tag]field[/tag] it and [tag]throw[/tag] it to the target (ball on tee). I sometimes have points awarded depending on if they hit the ball or the tee.
They are motivated to hit the target and are especially driven if someone else already has.