GOOD HOPE, Ala. – Good Hope’s softball team gathered for a special occasion Wednesday night, cutting the ribbon on a brand-new indoor training facility, and plenty of people were in attendance to witness the event unfold.
Head coach Tim Tucker is really happy to see an indoor training facility for his team and talked about how this idea first came up. He also talked about how much the process took and what having this new facility will mean for not only this year’s team, but for the future Lady Raiders.
“It’s been great. It’s been a great training tool for the girls. We got a lot of different things we can do in here, from our hitting to some fundamental fielding. It’s been good weather and we’ve put in a lot of work during this time of the year. It’s a great opportunity for these girls to further advance their skills and I’m very happy that we can make it happy for them,” he said. “This idea first came up about two years ago. We talked about it because had such a young group: 7th and 8th graders. We had a facility back at my place about five miles down the road and we were trying to get the girls from school to there, parents having to pick them up, get back, drop them off, come back and get them. We started discussing and we knew it would be years before we were going to have drivers on the team. We all came together in a meeting and talked about it. Everybody was on board, and everybody did a great job with fundraising and raising the money; they dedicated their time in helping us get this and achieve our goal here.”
He added,
“This started back in the spring of 2021, so we’ve been going on two years from the first idea of making it happen to when we finally got it going. It’s just going to be a great training facility and great tool for this group of girls and plus, all of the girls in the future coming up. The building’s built with solid concrete floors, all-metal rafters, metal tin roof and tin siding. It’ll be here for a lot of generations for Good Hope.”
The facility also has a pitching simulator and assistant coach Skylar Tucker went into detail about it and how the idea of getting it first came up. She also talked about how much it will help not only this year’s team, but the players after them.
“The pitching simulator’s a great addition to the building. It actually lets our girls practice hitting live pitching every time they hit, not only to see the motion of the pitcher, but we can also do curveballs, screwballs, dropballs, changeups. We can put different pitchers on the machine, left-handed and right-handed, so that they can get more focused on the windup and hitting live pitching every single day so they can get better,” she said. “We had the pitching machine since I was young. It started when I was about eight or nine years old. We had the pitching machine, but we heard about the simulator that can go with the machine. We purchased it this year and hooked it up with our old machine that we already originally had. It took about three weeks to get it ordered and get it in. Once it got here, it was just rewiring and getting all of the wiring down, making sure that it was set up and plugged up so it can be easily accessed.”
She added,
“This will definitely help this team out a lot with timing, just getting to get their rhythm, getting their timing, seeing the release and seeing the different hands. If the pitcher’s throwing a screwball, what does that hand look like? If they’re throwing a changeup, what does that hand look like? We’re just picking up on different little things that we’re working on every day to be great. It will definitely help out. This will be continued and stay in the building, to be worked with and to be continued on to help each age group. The girls will tell you this, but the more they hit off of it, the more they see this and work with it, it gets easier, and they get better each time they hit it, so it’s a process.”
Tim Tucker added some great stats about the pitching simulator and also talked about how key that will be for this year’s Lady Raider team.
“It’s been proven that the teams that have purchased and used this has increased their team batting average, anywhere from 175 to 225 points, which is huge,” he said. For this team, it will be huge and like I and coach Skylar said, for all of the other generations coming up.”
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