The start of every game begins with the serve. Many players are introduced to an underhand serve as a first step. At the High School level our goal is to get every player to successfully serve overhand. For some this skill comes naturally. In general those who have experience playing softball find the serve as easy as throwing a ball around the diamond. The basic idea is to toss the ball, step & swing making contact with the middle of your hand to the middle of the ball. If you contact just a little lower on the ball it will create a little more lift.

Its important to go quickly to the ball with the swing. The toss can be done with either 1 or 2 hands (use the weak side hand if just doing a one handed toss) with the toss going high enough to give you time to swing & extend your arm above your head. The toss will be different for everyone.

The step starts with your weak side foot forward (just like throwing a ball) take a small step forward transferring weight from back to front so that your hitting shoulder is just behind & under the toss. Using the middle of the body to create torque is key to generating power. You can not serve a ball just with your arms. Here’s a good video to show the 3 progression steps to serving https://youtu.be/g5sX0LCitgs .

Float Serve

FLOAT SERVE: The Float serve is the most difficult serve to receive. For you pitchers out there it performs similarly to a knuckle ball. The goal is to swing fast, middle of hand to middle of ball & finish with your hand high, palm to target. Speed is not as fast as a topspin ball but the irregular path it takes due to lack of spin makes it not only difficult to track by the serve receive team but it’s harder to control the pass. Here’s how to float & jump float serve https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTzo4eTxJSk

Jump Serve

JUMP SERVE: The jump serve is often effective because of its complexity. The receiving team has to read a lot of movement before the ball is passed throwing off timing. Its also just a lot of fun to do. The basics are (for a right handed person) Right Left- toss Right left jump & contact the ball. There are lots of variations but should not be your focus until you can consistently serve the ball in overhand.

Underhand Serve

UNDERHAND SERVE: The underhand serve is used by new players to gain confidence in gameplay. It is a generally very easy serve to receive & like a free ball allows the receiving team to run a full offense – any play they want which in return is hard to defend. Because serving is similar to hitting we prefer players focus as much time on the overhand serve as possible. It can take time but with enough patience & fortitude anyone can serve overhand.