Evening Practice at Clapham

7 dedicated Wolves (Manjiv, Alison, Vic, Paul, Julian, Peter and I) turned up for practice last night at our normal southern training base, or so we thought. It turned out that not only was there a GLSML Div. 4 match going on, on the pitch itself, but there was also a Nike Run London event/promotion, so we had to play across the road this time. It wasn't a bad pitch, (thanks to Paul for bringing some throwdown bases) and in stark contrast to the proper pitch, it actually had grass on the field.

After the normal Wolves warmup and throwing and catching practice, we carried out a drill that I had devised earlier in the day. Basically, we had a full infield, pitcher and a right fielder, plus the batter. As the ball was pitched, the batter had to hit the ball, and run to first base, whilst the infield worked together to field the ball and attempted to throw the batter/runner out. The purpose of the right fielder being involved was for them to run in and back up first base (unless of course the ball was hit directly to them :-) ). As we each switched it around to give everyone a go at batting, it was interesting for everyone to play in positions that they had perhaps never played in before. Special mentions go to Manjiv for making some great catches at first base, and Julian for making a nice back up play behind first base to stop the overthrow (and ducking well to give the third base person a chance to see the first base person when doing that tricky, long diagonal throw) . Also, Vic did very well with her throws, getting more power on them than before, by using a run up few steps, something that perhaps other Wolves can learn from. I felt that everyone was consistently hitting the ball harder than usual, which was good to see, and people were definitely thinking about what direction they were hitting to. On Paul's suggestion, we kept the same drill as above, but started making double and triple plays. Hopefully we can get some double plays in the upcoming tournament, as we were looking pretty slick at times last night. Now we just need to do it in the games.