Do you hit your team ball after ball working on cut-offs and relays only to have the whole thing get messed up in a game? If so, then join the club. It happens to everyone so discover a drill that will help solve this problem.
 
If it makes you feel any better, the problem of outfielders not hitting their relay and relays not hitting their cut-offs happens Down Under as well as here in the States. In fact, it happens all over, and yet it shouldn't. We practice it a lot and yet it still happens. So maybe we aren't practicing it properly. While I was in Australia recently I came up with a drill that's a great way to practice cut-offs & relays and team defense in general.

Practicing team defense under game-like pressure has always been a challenge for coaches to do. We usually put our team out there in their defensive positions, hit them some balls and have our players make throws to a certain base, over and over and over. Sure, we might add a runner every once-in-a-while but that's about the only thing we can figure out to do to change it up. While this type of defensive practice isn't bad, our team's usual poor defensive play in games proves that it isn't the best and that something is lacking.

So recently I'm down in Australia working with Softball Australia and their 16 & Under Developmental Camp and this drill suddenly comes to me in the middle of the night (weird, I know). I'd been watching the coaches work with their players the day before on defensive coverages, specifically their relays and cut-offs, and noticed they just weren't getting it done at game speed or with game-like factors present. So this drill just appears in my head around 4am, and after a little tweaking from the Australian coaches I've come up with what I think is a pretty good way to practice team defense, and specifically communication, relays, cut-offs and decision making.

Scatter Drill

Position your players as follows:

• 1st base, 2nd base, Rightfield, Centerfield, and Catcher line up on the 3rd base fouline.
• 3rd base, Shortstop, Leftfield and Pitcher line up on the 1st base fouline.
• All fielders stand on the fouline facing away from the field (their backs to the playing field).
• A Runner starts in the batter's box wearing a helmet.
• A coach stands near home plate with a bat and ball.

1. The coach hits the ball to the outfield (anywhere) to start the drill.
2. On hearing the ball hit, all fielders turn and face the diamond.
3. The outfielders immediately sprint to their positions. The outfielder(s) playing the position where the ball has been hit run after the ball to field it.
4. When the outfielders reach the grass the infielders can sprint to their positions and the runner can start running the bases, but not before the OF's reach the grass.
5. The Runner attempts to run the bases and reach home plate before being tagged out by the defense.
6. The outfielder nearest the ball will attempt to get the runner out at either 2nd base or homeplate.
7. Since the Catcher is the only player that can see the entire play developing she must talk as load as possible to let the OF's know where the runner is and where the throw (play) must go.
8. Try giving out points to make it even more competitive; the defense gets +4 points if they get the runner out at 2nd base, and +2 points if they get the runner out at home. The Runner (and there should be a few of them off to the side so you can do this drill multiple times in a row) will get points as well: +2 if they get to 2nd base and +4 if they score.