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Texas Tech's Kaitlyn Terry has transformed her hitting skills, raising her batting average from .257 to .471 after an unconventional training drill. Coach Gerry Glasco's unique approach to hitting drills is contributing to a notable offensive surge in college softball.
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LUBBOCK, Texas â The first time Kaitlyn Terry stepped into the batterâs box and saw the pitching machine standing less than 20 feet from home plate, Texas Techâs all-conference utility player thought someone might be playing a prank on her.
âAre you sure itâs supposed to be that close?â Terry called out to second-year coach Gerry Glasco. âThe pitcher isnât that close in games!â
Then a 70 mph pitch whizzed by her in a blink. This is wild, Terry thought.
From the sideline, Glasco smiled. âJust trust me,â he said. So Terry settled back into her stance and let it rip.
The unorthodox drill proved to be a difference-maker. Terry, who hit .257 last year at UCLA, has increased her batting average by more than 200 points this season after transferring to Tech. She leads the Red Raiders with a .471 average and is part of an offensive explosion in college softball this season.
Heading into conference tournament weekend, three different players were on the brink of smashing the single-season home run record (37). UCLAâs Megan Grant crossed the finish line first, smacking a homer against Nebraska in the Big Ten tournament to give her 38 on the season.
And itâs likely that her teammate Jordan Woolery (36 homers), as well as Oklahoma freshman Kendall Wells (33), will also pass the threshold in the coming weeks, as the postseason kicks off Friday with Regional play. The three big-time hitters should provide plenty of highlights for No. 3 overall seed Oklahoma and No. 8 seed UCLA.
But theyâre hardly the only ones who will show off their skills at the plate in the coming weeks. Texas Tech, the overall No. 11 seed, has the second-best odds to take home the national championship in part because its .388 batting average is second in the country, just behind the Sooners (.389). Terryâs .471 average is good enough for ninth in the country, and sheâs one of four Red Raiders who are hitting .434 or better.
That multiple players are poised to break a 30-year-old record is particularly noteworthy given the current era of pitching, where aces are more dominant and throwing harder than ever before. Sure, hitters are bigger, faster and stronger. But so are pitchers. Tennesseeâs Karlyn Pickens has recorded the fastest pitch ever on record (79.4 mph during last yearâs Super Regionals), Techâs NiJaree Canady has one of the most lethal rise balls in the game and Belmontâs Maya Johnson leads the nation with a 0.66 ERA (no, thatâs not a misprint).
Kaitlyn Terry improved her batting average by over 200 points, from .257 at UCLA to .471 at Texas Tech, through an unconventional training drill.
Coach Gerry Glasco uses a pitching machine positioned less than 20 feet from home plate to help players like Kaitlyn Terry adapt to faster pitches.
Kaitlyn Terry leads the Red Raiders with a .471 batting average, contributing to an overall offensive explosion in college softball this season.
The current college softball season is notable for its offensive explosion, with players like Kaitlyn Terry showcasing significant improvements in batting averages.
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So how do you build a great hitter in an age of superior pitching? Coaches say youâve got to get creative.
Nowhere is that more obvious than in Lubbock, where Glasco employs some unconventional techniques during batting practice â the type Canady calls âterrifying.â
Glasco moves the machine close â the pitching mound is 43 feet away in softball, so heâll regularly cut the distance in half â and doesnât decrease the velocity, forcing hitters to react even faster than usual. Heâll have them stand on 2-foot platforms, keep the machine on the ground and hit rise balls at an exaggerated angle.
Heâll set two machines up to throw roughly one second apart. In the first round, players hit the first ball while the second flies by during their follow-through. In the second round, they have to wait and watch the first ball go by before swinging at the second. For the third round, a coach will stand behind the plate and call out if batters should hit the first or second pitch, gauging their reaction time.
âThis is all just making them realize how powerful the human mind is and how elite they can be as hitters,â Glasco said. âIt gives them so much confidence.â
Glasco compared it to basketball players doing quirky ballhandling drills, like looping the ball around their ankles, stomach and neck.
âTheyâre never going to do that in a game,â Glasco said. âBut theyâre doing it to become better ballhandlers. Well, weâre doing this to become better bat handlers. I want to take them outside their normal dimension.â
He admits his methods wouldnât fly with everyone.
âIf they put me on a major-league team and had me do this stuff, theyâd think I was insane,â he said. âGuys making $4 million a year wouldnât handle it well.â
But at the collegiate level, the coach still has major pull. Plus, the results speak for themselves.
âItâs definitely frustrating at first,â Terry said. âYou miss almost every pitch. But once you get the hang of it, knowing your bat speed can be that fast, if you can hit one of those balls, you can hit any ball.â
Bat speed is the main reason Glasco will move the machine closer. If a hitter can increase their bat speed enough to connect on a 70 mph pitch when itâs 20 feet away, when the pitch is coming from double that distance, theyâll have even longer to watch it and decide if theyâre going to swing.
Taking more time to read a pitch sounds wild considering the ball travels from circle to plate in roughly 0.4 seconds. But for elite players, the game slows down enough that the extra time is real. And in this sport, every nanosecond makes a difference.
The other major factor in all this offensive firepower? A shrinking strike zone.
âI do think the strike zone has gotten tighter,â said Pickens, the two-time All-American pitcher who has watched her sportâs offensive burst first-hand. âAnd itâs something as a pitcher, you have to accept: âOK, this is what I have to work with, what am I going to do about it?ââ
Woolery at UCLA said the offense might be even more power-packed in the coming weeks â and sheâs excited about what it could mean for TV ratings.
âAs we get into the postseason, the strike zone gets even smaller,â she said. âPitchers do have to come a little bit more over the plate. If youâre a casual fan, you love to see the long ball, so seeing people hit home runs really draws people to the game.â
Woolery credited her improvement this season â she went from hitting .424 last year to .515 this year â to Bruins assistant coach Lisa Fernandez, who preaches that a big part of being a great hitter is believing you already are one. Woolery said the Bruins tell each other, âItâs the warrior, not the weapon.â
There have been small technical changes with bats, too, though players donât really understand them, and coaches say theyâre relatively minor. Terry just knows that she feels âmore powerfulâ when she swings, whether or not she makes contact.
Canady doesnât hit often for Tech, but said the âsweet spotsâ on the bat are considerably bigger than when she was a freshman at Stanford. And that much is obvious even to the untrained eye, she said, because players are smacking homers left and right.
âIâm a fan of it when weâre on offense, but when Iâm pitching, not so much,â she said, laughing. âI guess itâs a good thing Iâm getting out of college when I am cause these girls can hit.â
And if everyone adopted her coachâs batting practice drills, they might be hitting even more.
âIf every team did what we do every day, weâd see an even bigger offensive explosion,â Terry said. âIâm sure of it.â
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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