The Iowa Blitz is a fastpitch softball organization designed to provide players eligible for high school competition another avenue outside of the high school competition to receive exposure and recognition from collegiate programs, primarily within the region, but also, on a national scale. While the program is designed to help young athletes who have a desire to play at the collegiate level, it is not exclusive to those athletes alone.  The Iowa Blitz has become recognized as a strong showcase program from the state of Iowa.

SSA Training Program Speed Strength Agility Program

Overview

The purpose of this program is some softball specific training and player development for out of season time. We will drop the gloves and bats to work on fundamental athletic skills necessary for players to see success on the field. Balance, coordination, agility, speed, and strength are all essential things needed for successful athletes that we, as coaches, don't have enough time to focus on in season. These workouts will be designed will have aspects of free weight training, calistenics, basic body weight exercises, resistance training, core stability and strength training, plyometric exercises, agility training, and reaction drills.

Meet the Coaches

This program will be led by one of our 14u team coaches. Josh Kassmeyer has been a coach within our program for almost 3 years now. Before that he has been coaching athletes in basketball, football, and cross country. He has also helped with coordinating and planning strength and conditioning programs at his previous school. Outside of youth training Josh has earned his Level 1 Trainer certificate and has coached athletes through class settings focusing on weight training, gymnastic, calisthenics, and plyometric exercises. He has also assisted in training youth athletes through the Acceleration Iowa Program at the Urbandale location. He will also be assisted by his wife Katey Kassmeyer, who has been a head coach for the blitz for almost 3 years now and prior to that spent 5 years coaching at the high school level for softball. Josh and Katey will lead this program, but you may see other coaches from our program assist through the training sessions.

Who can attend?

This program is for any athlete that is interested in improving their abilities. Any athlete within the Blitz program is welcome to sign up and participate in the program. The coaches will modify workouts when necessary to facilitate a diverse skill set. If there are athletes from outside the program that have interest and would like to sign up as well they are welcome too.

Location and Times

All sessions will be held on the main turf space at our indoor facility, which is located at 1710 Guthrie Ave, DSM, 50316. We will have two days a week with multiple sessions for athletes to attend. We will hold weeknight workouts on Tuesday nights from 7-9 and weekend workouts on Saturday from 8-10. You may either attend one or both of the days. Each workout will only be an hour long, which means there will be two workouts sessions per day that your athlete will be able to attend.

Program Dates and Timeline

This program will start on December 6th and run through the first full week of February with the last session being on Saturday February 11. There will be some flexibility and time off for the holidays and that will be communicated to the athletes.

Costs

With this being an out of season, supplemental, training program there will be a cost associated with it. These costs will be split between the usage of facility space, purchase of some training specific equipment, and paying coaches for their time.

1 Session/week : $80

2 Sessions/week : $120

Payment can be made using this link:

https://iowablitz.sportngin.com/register/form/208356367

If you have any questions or concerns please email coach Josh at kassmeyerblitz@gmail.com

Speed Strength Agility Flyer .pdf

Hello!

We will be holding tryouts for our Fall teams in the coming weeks! We will be sending more information out shortly!

If interested in a tryout, please complete the form here:

https://iowablitz.sportngin.com/register/form/862676184

On behalf of the Ryan and Angie Hesseltine family, The Iowa Blitz/Iowa Gold is honored to announce the following winners of this year's Aliya Hesseltine Honorary Scholarship award. Due to our fundraising efforts, mainly through the February Indoor event we hold each year in Aliya's name, we offered a record number of scholarships (5) and had a record number of applicants (14) to choose from. This year's applicants were asked to write a 500-word essay tying in what the term "Conquer from within" means to them. A panel of 7 judges reviewed the applications and were moved by what they read and the thought that was portrayed by these applicants in their essays. This year was extremely tough with so many applicants, and nearly all applicants received votes. That said, these five stood out.

Congratulations to following:

Emma Mostek

Kailee Pollard

Kate Kriegel

Stella Umphreys

Chloe Dougherty