WEEK 18 OF THE SOFTBALL COACH

THIS WEEK WAS ONE OF MANY CHALLENGES

    What a busy week, Monday and Tuesday night saw all our men's league teams get their games in with only a slight rain and thunder storm passing through.

      The Canberra Diamonds are now just two weeks away from there first big tournament, and excitement is in the air as they feel we have a genuine chance to win. We will cross the Tasman on December the 10th and will enjoy the sights of Auckland New Zealand, and playing 9 games in 4 days. This year we have a strong pitching staff and our pitcher from Italy, gave up her 1st run in our local competition on Saturday and was she disappointed. We capped off the week to-day  Sunday with a real good hitting practice. It was then time to talk about fund raising, and how we were going to man our food stall at the Canberra Skins Tournament coming up this week end.

      Our final meeting was held Wednesday night to make sure we had everything covered for the skins, we went over and double checked to make sure every little detail was looked into. With 23 teams coming and all guaranteed 7 games there are a lot of details to take care of. The umpires all come in on Thursday and we must feed. water and house them for the weekend. This tournament is also the start of the selection process for our National Men's Team and as Head Coach it makes me chairman of the selection panel. As you can see i will have a busy week-end.

       Friday night was our boys development program, our pitchers and catchers started at 5.30 for one hour. I couldn't believe the improvement in these boys as for most it was only their 2nd week of pitching. It was then time for a 1/2 hour of skills where we covered throwing and catching but also how and where to be when playing in the infield. It was game time and somehow i got roped into umpiring. No one called me blind so i must of did alright.

       When the games were over it was time to announce the 4 teams who would take part in The Aussie got Talent Tournament. This is held as part of the skins tournament so the boys get a chance to see their idols play. You wouldn't believe: the excitement in those boys when they left the ballpark.

        Not only was it practice time for our representative teams, the chairman of selector's and myself as coaching director added our next team to our program as we selected our u/13 girls team.