Behind The Scenes Of D1 Softball

 A part of being an athlete is supporting your program and your school. We do many things for volunteering and raising money for our softball program. One of the things we are doing as a team this weekend is helping sell tickets and run the booths for our school football game. This is going to help us raise money while supporting another team on campus. This is just the first step for us to raise more money to help support the Gardner Webb Softball program.  Gardner Webb Softball Page

 This week I have been home and quarantined which has kept me off the field. Covid has been spreading around our school and it has infected some of my team. I started feeling sick on Labor Day which was the day before our last week of individual training. Since I tested positive for covid I had to go home and isolate myself from people. It's been hard mentally to sit out of practices and quarantine from my teammates. But it has given me time to reflect and prepare for team practices next week. New Covid Guidelines

 Small groups for defensive work have really helped me focus on specific things I need to improve. We have done many footwork drills which have helped us with speed and timing to the ball. Specifically ladder drills are what we have done daily to increase our speed. I like using the ladder drills as a warm-up because it gets your heart rate up and can help you focus on being intentional with your footwork. Ladder Fielding Drills

 We have had a lot of small group hitting sessions for the first few weeks of school. This has been very beneficial because we have gotten a lot of one-on-one coaching which has helped us grow. Since we are only a few weeks into training we have stuck with mainly the basics and lots of loading drills. The load is one of the most essential parts of the swing because how you start impacts its entirety. So keeping our load smooth and on time has helped us prepare to move into live pitching.  Softball Tee Drills