Individualized practice helping OSU at plate
STILLWATER — In early March, as coach Kenny Gajewski looked for a way to ignite the lackluster offensive performance of his Oklahoma State softball team, he realized his players needed more individual attention.
So Gajewski changed his approach to batting practice, particularly on Tuesdays — one of the only days during the week when a team can truly focus on itself.
A typical week includes four games and a mandatory day off, leaving only two days for practice, and sometimes, one of those is also a travel day. With that schedule, Gajewski knew he needed to take full advantage of opportunities for personalized work with his hitters. So the coach devised a schedule for players to come to the indoor hitting facility in small groups to work directly with one of the team’s four coaches.
“Instead of having all our hitters here at once, we’re bringing like five to six in at a time,” Gajewski said. “I feel like it’s really been beneficial to us to get some personal touch, some personal work, and not having to rush through.
“I don’t think we need to have as many team days now. You’re playing a lot of games and I feel like we have time to get the practice stuff in. We need the offensive work and we’ve been focusing on that, and it’s really paid off.” No kidding, it’s paid off.
As the sixth-ranked Cowgirls head into a weekend series at Iowa State beginning with a 4 p.m. Friday game, they’ve won 12 straight and scored at least six runs in 10 of those wins.
Over the first 14 games of the year, the Cowgirls averaged 3.6 runs per game, scoring five or more just twice. But in the last 21 games, they’ve averaged 7.1 runs per game and scored five or more 15 times.
“They’re starting to see the fruits of their labor,” Gajewski said. “There’s a lot of other things that have been working into this to get these kids a little bit more consistent and able to have some tools to fight, especially as conference play comes.
The Cowgirls are 6-0 through the first two weekends of Big 12 play, having improved to 29-6 overall. With a pitching staff that has rounded into impressive form, the team is beginning to play to the potential Gajewski believed it could have.
“We just feel like with this team and the experience we have, that the one thing we needed to focus on was our offense and just getting some kids some personal work,” he said. “We kind of went back to some basics. We did some video to try and prove some points.
“We’ve taken that approach and we’ve really liked what we’ve seen.”
The players have appreciated the individualized workouts as well.
“It’s more focusing on little stuff every day,” said center fielder Chyenne Factor. “It’s helped a lot, as you can tell.
“There’s more time to focus, instead of having the whole team in there. We’ve got four cages up there, so the coaches can each watch a cage. It is nice to have someone in each cage looking at you and seeing different things, because they all see different things.”
Factor leads the Cowgirls with nine home runs while batting .326 as an anchor in the middle of the lineup.
Sophomore right fielder Katelynn Carwile has been a key piece in the Cowgirls’ offensive surge. After spending most of February coming off the bench as a pinch-hitter, Carwile earned a starting spot and now leads the team in batting average (.423) to go with an on-base percentage of .483 and slugging percentage of .692.
She, too, has felt the benefits of the individualized practice approach.
“We get to break more stuff down and work on specific things,” Carwile said. “Having less people, you have really good interaction with the coaches. I think it’s been beneficial for the last few weeks.”