In his fourth year as a part of the California High School softball program, Darrell Bolin is still in the process of building things. Last season, his first as head coach, Bolin led the Pintos to three wins, which exceeded the win total from the previous two years combined.
One way to build a sustainable athletics program is to get all ages involved, and that was on display last week at the high school softball field. Bolin and new assistant coach Jordan Hoecker led three groups of players - 3rd-5th grade, 6th-8th grade and high school - in drills and activities designed to improve fundamentals.
"I think anytime you can get the kids involved and get them to knowing the coaches young, it helps," Bolin said. "They get comfortable and they understand kind of what your style of coaching is, it builds that rapport with those kids."
Roughly 30 players participated in the camp, which was an attendance improvement over last summer. In line with the old "defense wins championships" mantra, the camp's focus was more on defensive fundamentals and situations rather than hitting.
"We worked a lot of fundamentals on just fielding the ball," Bolin said. "We focused more on defense than on offense. You can hit all you want to, but if you can't stop the ball on defense, you don't get to bat a lot."
While the necessity of fundamentals stays critical all the way up through the high school level, the goals of the camp varied depending on the age groups. The camp emphasized fun for the youngest group, while the 6th-8th graders focused on honing in on the fundamentals with high school not far off.
As for the high school group, the camp was closer to an all-out practice. The Pintos softball team officially begins practice on Monday. With this week being the MSHSAA dead week, camp was the final time to work with most of the players before the season begins in earnest.
"I told the girls, 'If you can take one thing away from the camp that you learned, it's worth every minute that we spent out here,'" Bolin said.