Adding some competition to drills is a great way to put some fun into the practice. This Softball Fielding Elimination Game is a way to include consequences to missing the ball without using punishment. By eliminating the players who make the errors, the drill or game gets more and more difficult which is a way for the teams to feel the stress of having to execute properly.
Softball Fielding Elimination Game
Divide the players into two teams. Have the teams form two lines facing eachother about 40 to 60 feet apart, with players shoulder to shoulder three feet apart. Place something two feet from each girl at either end of both lines. These are the goal posts. The goal posts can be buckets, cones, balls, or the parents. Hand a ball to one of the players. To play the game, the girls take turns trying to throw grounders through the opposing line. They can throw as hard as they want (make sure they’re spaced far enough apart).
The rules are fairly simple: The player who fails to prevent the ball from going past the imaginary line between goal post is out of the game. The team who loses all its players first loses. The ball must bounce in front of the players to count. If a player’s ball is caught on the fly without bouncing the player who threw it is out – if it is dropped, she stays in. If a ball goes through the line without bouncing, it has no effect. Any throw outside the goal posts has no effect.
As players are eliminated move the goal posts in until the last player has a goal roughly six feet wide. Hint: if the players learn to charge the ball, it gives one of their team mates an opportunity to back them up. If there is a question as to which player allowed the ball to get through the line, the opposing team decides.
