Avon Grove Area Little League: Softball - Rookies
Rookie Division:
The Rookie Division consists of mostly 7 and 8 year old girls. 6 year old’s may play IF they played Little League T-ball the previous season. The division, in most cases, is the first exposure to the sport for most of the girls. It’s imperative for the coaches to understand this and make it a positive experience for them. The coaches will be focusing on the basic fundamentals of the game and also explaining the rules of the game.
The first half of the season, the girls will be pitched to by the coach. After a set number of pitches (usually about 5), if there was no contact made, the player will hit off a batting tee. Players will advance only one base at a time. The batting order will be continuous and will still play 3 outs. Inning will end when either, 1) the defense has recorded 3 outs or 2) the offensive team has batted through the order or 3) the offensive team has reached a set number of runs that inning (usually 4 or 5).
The second half of the season will see some rule changes. Now the players will do the pitching. They will pitch to the batter until: 1) the batter strikes out (3 strikes) or 2) the batter puts the ball in play for either a hit or an out or 3) the batter gets 4 balls. At that time the coach will come in and pitch and the at bat will end by either #1 or #2 above. The pitcher will come in and pitch to the next batter.
Since this is a developmental division, all girls should play all the positions they would like to try.
The season usually starts in about the 3rd week of March. There will be a couple weeks of practice, and then games usually start the first week of April. A typical season usually consists of 2 practices a week before the season starts. Once the season starts, you can expect one practice a week and a game every Saturday. Later on in the season you may add in some additional games during the week. The teams you will be playing will be the other AG Rookie teams and also Kennett Square’s and Oxford’s teams. You will travel to their field and they will come to our field as well. The season usually ends the first week of June. As for the practices, that is at the manager’s discretion and field availability as for what day of the week and for the number per week.
