Product Review

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Many successful softball teams boast a sweet-swinging slugger or a ""can't-touch-this"" starting pitcher, but softball teams that win championships are built on a framework of solid team defense.

In Defensive Softball Drills, Coach Jacquie Joseph provides coaches with 66 proven drills for building this framework. She presents drills for learning and mastering skills at each position and for molding players into a finely tuned defensive unit.

Recent trends in the sport-livelier balls, increased bat technology, the left-hand slapper, and, at the collegiate level, the greater distance from the pitching mound to the plate-have resulted in more offense. Defensive Softball Drills provides the practice tools to counteract those advantages to give teams the winning edge.

All of the drills are accompanied by coaching points and detailed illustrations. The book also includes a handy drill finder for locating drills to work on specific areas and situations.

The drills focus on:

- eliminating the big inning
- perfecting ball-catching skills
- employing an aggressive defensive style
- working on the mental aspect of defense

The drills are geared toward middle and advanced level fastpitch players, but slowpitch players and beginning fastpitch players will benefit from them, too.