Hitting camp and lessons

This past weekend Alicia attended a hitting clinic at the UNC Chapel Hill campus. This is her in the picture with one of the players and the head coach.

Alicia was very disappointed that her team has taken the month of November and December off from training. She feels it is very important to continue to practice. Alicia's love is softball and though others choose to play other sports she continues to work on her game. Her pitching coach, Vanessa, always stresses muscle memory and when you play other sports you will be using different muscles in different ways. If she continues to work on her softball game her muscle memory with be increased.

Alicia has recently started working with Gwen Johnson, a part time coach at UNCG, to improve her hitting. Gwen was one of UNCG's toughest hitters. She is not only teaching Alicia the skills of hitting but also the mental attitude.

Alicia Stealing bases

This weekend Alicia played in the IFA Winter World Series at Proliefic Park in Greensboro. This first picture is her lead off on first base.

The next picture if you look real close you can see the ball has not reached the batter yet and Alicia is off and running.






When Alicia was on third base there was a passed ball by the catcher of the Triad Power and Alicia came in to score. Alicia was very aggressive on the bases this weekend and loves to steal ( bases that is). :)

Photos from this past weekend

This is a photo of Alicia sliding into home plate to make the game winning run. You can see how far away the ball was. One minute she was on first base and the next she was sliding into home.














The next photo is the Xtreme Rampage 14U team with their third place trophies.

The last photo is of Jamie Gammon, the coach of the Xtreme Rampage giving Alicia her trophy.

Guest Play for Xtreme Rampage 14U

Alicia had a great weekend guest playing for the Xtreme Rampage 14U team. Most of the girls on the Xtreme Rampage will be playing 16U in the spring.
The coach of the Xtreme Rampage, Jamie Gammons and her own coach, Jimmy Edwards of the Carolina Ice, were happy with her performance this weekend.

She helped the team win an important game against the Lady Hornets. Alicia battled on her last at bat and was walked. The next player got a hit and Alicia, with her speed ran from first base to home to score the winning run. The score was only 2-1.

Alicia does not enjoy bunting but she is very good at it. Since she is so fast she can lay down a bunt and in most cases make it to first base.

She contributed three sacrifice bunts this weekend and had a 1000 batting average for the weekend.

Alicia is easy to get along with and had a great time meeting the players of the Xtreme Rampage. She hopes to see them again or even play with them again. After this experience, Alicia feels confident that she can play good ball with the older girls.

They came home with third place in the silver division and were only 5 minutes away from playing in the championship game.

New Tool

Alicia's father recently purchased the RevFire. She had practice last night at the "Chicken House", an indoor facility, and they used the RevFire. Alicia's fast ball was 50mph and her screw ball was between 38 and 39mph. The RevFire also shows the spin rate of the ball. Alicia's spin rate was 16RPS.

A good breaking ball (curveball, riseball, dropball, or screwball) requires at least 19 RPS. Some pitchers
achieve more than 22 RPS consistently with their breaking balls. A few are known to throw riseballs
consistently at 30 RPS. In high school the best breaking balls pitchers typically throw around 23 RPS. There
is more variability in the spin rate on fastballs, depending on the type of fastball thrown and whether the
pitcher is trying to put movement on the pitch. Although the spin rates for fastpitch softball are slower than for
baseball, the effect of spin is more pronounced than with baseballs because of the larger surface area and
higher seams of a softball.


*High School data from National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) recruiting camps.

GENERAL GUIDELINE FOR JUNIOR & SENIOR YEAR HIGH SCHOOL PITCHERS*:
SPIN RATE (RPS)
17.0 – 18.9 Average
19.0 - 21.9 Good
22.0 and more Excellent

*This guideline is for high school pitchers without RevFire based training.


BREAKING BALL SPIN RATE GUIDELINE FOR DIVISION I COLLEGE FASTPITCH SOFTBALL:
SPIN RATE (RPS)
20.0 - 21.9 Average
22.0 - 24.9 Good
25.0 and up Excellent

Video of pitching in August

The video is not the best but it will give you an idea of her pitching. This takes place at UNCG with her pitching coach Vanessa Oakes Williams.

Update

Alicia will be playing with her travel team the Carolina Ice in the One Day IFA Fall Festival in Archdale on October 17th. Then her next tournament will be the IFA Winter World Series in Greensboro the weekend of November 6-8th.

I am including her times from the IFA combines this spring. Her pitching speed has increased since spring to the high 40s to low 50s.

A. Daly 34- pitching speed on 5/2/09
Alicia Daly 3.53 running to first base 4/18/09
A. Daly 3.59 running to first base 05/02/09

Alicia will be attending the November 15th fall clinic at the University of NC at Chapel Hill. And also plans to attend their January 17th "Get Ready for your Season" player clinic.

Alicia is available to play as a guest player.

Games for this weekend

The Carolina Ice's first game will be at 10:30 this Saturday. See this link

New Pitches

Alicia had her pitching lesson yesterday and she is currently working on some new pitches. She already has the pop change up, fast ball and an awesome screw ball. She is now working on a horseshoe change up, circle change up and backhand change up. Vanessa told her she needs to get the horseshoe and circle change up down so they can move on to a drop ball.

Alicia is also signing up for some fall clinics; one is at UNCC and the other is at UNC Chapel Hill. The writer feels it is important for her to be seen by more coaches plus take a look at some of the other local colleges that play softball.

Next Tournament

The Carolina Ice will be playing their next tournament the weekend of October 10th and 11th at Beeson Sports Complex in Kernersville, NC. It is called the 12U,14U Super Saver, click to get the info.

This past weekend

Alicia pitched the first game of a invited tournament that the Carolina Ice participated in this weekend. She was the winning pitcher of the game against the Carolina Cardinals. She did not allow any hits.

In the fourth game of the day she got a triple and even got into a pushing scrap with the third baseman.

Alicia now has three pitches, a fast ball, a change up and a screw ball.

The Daly family went to watch the UNCG Spartans play against UNCC this past Sunday. Alicia knows several of the players from UNCG. She watched very intently and observed how the players responded to different plays.

This coming weekend the Carolina Ice is having a car wash and yard sale as a fundraiser for the team.

The Beginning

Alicia started playing softball in the fall of 2007 for Summerfield Recreational Association. In the spring of 2008 she joined the 12U GBC Fastpitch Fever travel team. Over this past summer she participated in a softball camp sponsored by the UNCG spartan softball team. Then she participated in a softball camp at Proelific Park in Greensboro. One of the coaches at Proelific park was a baseball recruiter from the Oakland A's. He was impressed with Alicia's skills.

Alicia is currently on the 14U Carolina Ice travel team. She pitches, plays second base and outfield.
She is also taking pitching lessons once a week with Vanessa Oakes Williams, the assistant coach at UNCG.

This is a picture of Alicia and Vanessa.