California hosted a softball jamboree with Russellville and Eugene Saturday afternoon, giving the Lady Pintos live action heading into this Saturday's season opener.
"The first game, I thought we were pretty into it and pretty decent," head coach Darrell Bolin said. "In the second game, I don't know if it was the heat or what, but it just seemed like they kind of went to sleep."
The teams played round-robin style scrimmages of four innings, and the coaches had the opportunity to put runners on base to practice certain situations.
"One thing I took away was that this really helped solidify the positions," Bolin said. "That's all I was looking for. This was just a fancy practice. It kind of let everybody see a game situation."
California begins the 2015 campaign Saturday at the Marshall Tournament at 9 a.m.
But first, Bolin has this week of practices to focus on a few key areas his team needs in order to succeed.
"We're going to hammer on communication," Bolin said. "We're going to work on what is in a "ready position'. Where they're suppose to be at. A lot of it is just back to fundamentals."
Hitting and pitching were the positives that jumped out from the two scrimmages.
Most of California's defensive outs came via strikeouts. Kaitlyn Turn, Paige Johnson, Braleigh Johnson and Destiny Cook all worked a couple of innings.
The Lady Pintos were able to make solid contact at the plate, too, but a lot of times, the ball went straight to a defender.
"We didn't make them work," Bolin said. "That doesn't help. Yeah, the girls put the bat on the ball, but whenever you hit it straight to them, it's pretty easy to field it."
Unfortunately, the mistakes were more common than the positives. Passed balls and miss-communication were big problems for the Lady Pintos on defense.
Most of the runs were allowed from wild pitches or passed balls, and those runs were set up by miss-communication on the field.
"We're really going to work our catcher at practice," Bolin said. "They've got to learn, and be comfortable to get in front of the ball with the gear on."
There were a couple of situations when an opposing batter walked, then took second base because a middle infielder wasn't covering the base.
"We had some defensive players out of position from time to time," Bolin said. "We had some kids standing and watching. That's something we're just going to have to work on."