Nevada Lady Tigers softball gets Olympic aid

Saturday, July 31, 2010

NEVADA -- "If you're worried about making contact, you need to be doing a lot more work at home." Not exactly conventional wisdom out of the mouth of a softball coach, but that's just one of the not-so-traditional lessons that the Nevada Lady Tigers softball team got in a specialized hitting clinic led by former Olympian Christie Ambrosi.

Ambrosi began her softball career as a four-time letter winner and a member of a three-time state finalist team in high school before becoming a five-time gold medalist on the United States National team -- including a gold medal at the 2000 Games in Sydney, Australia -- and helping the Bruins of UCLA to a national championship in 1999. A resumé like that seems almost unreachable to a typical team of small-town high school players, but head coach Tammy Holcomb's Lady Tigers got a little taste of what Ambrosi had to offer as she led a hitting clinic at the Franklin P. Norman City/County Community Center Friday.

The Lady Tigers didn't have as much trouble getting an athlete of Ambrosi's caliber to come in and provide some supplemental coaching as might be expected since there was already a connection between Ambrosi and the Lady Tigers team. Ambrosi has already spent considerable time working with returning sophomore Christian Novak as her pitching coach, giving her strong ties to the squad and a willingness to help out. "She was very willing to come," Holcomb said of Ambrosi.

Ambrosi focused on nearly every aspect of hitting from intangible things such as confidence at the plate and knowing a hitter's own limitations to the obvious aspects such as mechanics of the swing and ways to maximize power. Ambrosi gave a number of tips to improve on a hitter's abilities at the plate, not only to hit the ball, but to leave an impression on opposing pitchers. Among those tips were ideal batter's box position, body language and perfecting the ability to know when to lay off a pitch.

Though all of the players who attended the clinic were provided with a substantial learning opportunity, they weren't the only ones. On top of simply reiterating a number of techniques that many coaches already teach, Ambrosi used her time to beat down some of the old conventional wisdom of coaches.

Many coaches will instruct their players to stay as compact as possible in the box and to simply swing to make contact rather than worrying about "swinging for the fences." According to Ambrosi, however, players should be opening up their motion to allow for more power generation and step into the box with the intent of hitting the ball as hard as possible, already knowing that contact will happen.

Holcomb said that there was a lot that both she and her team could learn from Ambrosi's methods. Many of the new coaching techniques Ambrosi introduced proved very useful and could change her philosophy for the better in a number of ways, Holcomb said. "I think it will definitely help myself as a coach," she said.

The Lady Tigers have already gotten preparations well under way for the 2010 season as they held their offseason training camp this past week. Regular season practices for Holcomb's squad are set to begin Aug. 9, and the upcoming season will kick off on Monday, Aug. 23, when the Lady Tigers host the Lady Cardinals of Clinton High School.