Week 1 of Practice is Complete

The first week of practice for the JV team is now over. This past week I was able to evaluate the talent we'll have for the season. We have only two players that have returned from last years JV team. The rest were on the Freshman team last year and we also have a couple of current freshman playing for us. Our first game is coming up on Wednesday the 24th against Dobson High School at home. With our first game coming up so quickly, we have had a lot of information to cover over this past week. The other JV coach and I decided to stick to the basics for now. We worked on hitting pretty intensely while covering basic situations on defense like the double play and who will take the cut-off throw from our outfielders. For the most part, every one of our players looked really good this week in practice. We have 16 girls on our team which means that not everyone is going to get to play. The other coach and I have made it very clear to the girls that they need to come to practice everyday with a positive attitude and the will to work hard giving the team 110%. Any day that a player slacks off in practice is the day someone else will work harder than them and earn a starting position for games. While evalutating our talent on the team I've been running scenarios in my head of who might start because they have great defensive skills or because they have a strong bat. Just about everyone on our team can hit. I feel pretty confident that I can put together a starting line up with all 9 players averaging over .300 throughout the season. Last Thursday, I wrote out on a piece of paper the who I believe are our top 9 players. Coincidentally so did the other coach and we had the exact same starting 9 players with a couple of girls hitting in a different order. It was nice to know that the other coach and I are on the same page with who we want to play. It will be interesting to see how our first game plays out. I hope that our starting nine can produce results like we expect them too. If they don't, then one of the other 7 girls on the bench will be given the opportunity to step up and get the job done. I'll let you all know how our first game goes by the end of next week! Have a great week everyone! Thanks!

First Post, New Season!

Since this is my first post for this blog, I suppose I should tell a little about myself to let you know who I am. My name is Jenna Kush, I am 25 years old and I'm in my last semester for my undergraduate degree in general studies with a certificate in leadership and ethics at Arizona State University. I am a native to Tempe, Arizona and I absolutely love living here in the Valley of the Sun. While growing up here, I have constantly been surrounded by sports. My absolute favorite is softball/baseball because I've been playing for about 15 years now. Although I love softball, football is another favorite of mine and you will always find me at the Sun Devil football games in the fall. GO DEVILS! It may appear that I am a total sports junkie but that is not necessarily the case. I enjoy all kinds of music, art and movies, I love going to movies! I'll leave it at that for now and there will be more about me later.

Those of you that are reading this probably already know that this blog is being kept for the purposes of documenting my experiences in my internship, but I just in case someone reads this and isn't a part of this internship class, that is why I'm keeping this blog. For my internship I am working as an Assistant Softball Coach for the JV team at Corona del Sol High School. This entire past week was try-outs for the girls. It's always interesting during try-out week to see the new freshman faces coming into our program and to see who has improved since last year. I have to say that I am impressed with the amount of talent our program will have on all levels. Our Freshman team will be stacked as well as our JV team. The Varsity team on the other hand is in a precarious situation. A lot of the leaders and pitchers from last year's team have graduated which means that some of the younger girls are going to have to step up their game. Our oldest pitchers in our program are only sophomores. I've been following our Head Varsity Coach all week long to see how she is dealing with the situation on hand. She's an amazing coach and there is a lot I can learn from her. Unfortunately during the week of try-outs we as coaches are not allowed to "coach" or "instruct" and of the girls. Therefore, I don't have much else to report on this weeks events other than I'm excited for the upcoming season.

One last bit of information before I finish my first post. I consider myself to be a very open and down to earth person. I welcome any comments, questions, advice or even constructive criticism. I know that for the requirements of this class we are supposed to comment on each others blogs, but I just want it to be known that if you have anything to say please feel free to let me know what is on your mind. Your feedback will hopefully allow me to gain a better understanding of my experiences. Thanks and I hope you enjoy reading about what I'm doing over the next couple of months!