Beth Fulcher
Former Head Softball Coach
George Mason University
Need some help getting practices organized? Check out Coach Fulcher’s tips for maximizing your practice time.
Pitching Fundamentals
Probably the hardest thing for coaches to teach is pitching. Most of us have never thrown a windmill pitch. This page can help familiarize you with Pitching Fundamentals. Call our travel coordinator or player development coordinator to find out how you can learn more about the windmill. Also, check out a video from the Commissioner.
Hitting Fundamentals
This page provides a very good primer on fastpitch Hitting Fundamentals. The good fastpitch swing is nothing like a baseball swing. Invest some time in understanding the difference. Again, the travel coordinator and the player development coordinator can help you learn more about hitting techniques.
Rules
It’s important that every coach have a good understanding of the rules for their leagues. Check them out on the Rules page.
Defensive Charts
One of the things we feel very strongly about is that all players who participate in the SYA Softball program get the opportunity to contribute in a variety of ways on both offense and defense. Coaches are encouraged to mix up their batting orders so the same players don’t always bat at the bottom of the order. We also want you to give players the opportunity to play different defensive positions. No player should be placed in the outfield all the time. That’s not fair to them or to the team. We have some strong rules about equalizing playing time. Check them out in the General Rules. You wouldn’t want to get caught by your opponent and be forced to sit out your best players in the last inning or two. Check out our defensive charts (chart 1 and chart 2) which can help you ensure that the girls play an equal number of innings and get rotated around to different positions.