About Coach Manny

Coach Manuel (Manny) Aguilera, is new to the New Hampshire area from Southern California where for the past 8 years he has been coaching softball with his two daughters beginning at the recreational  level up to ASA travel ball level.   During the transition to coaching Travel Ball he was very fortunate to receive hitting instruction for both his girls from a 2004 Olympic Softball hometown hero (Nicole Giordano) whom also played for the University of Arizona under Mike Candrera , the USA Olympic Team Coach ,on a full scholarship.

She also provided Manny’s 10U, 12U and 14U travel teams with monthly hitting instruction and individual hitting lessons.  Over the years Manny studied and retained the same philosophies and approach to hitting with his daughters and teams to be able to compete in a “very competitive” ASA travel team environment.   He was successful in developing productive hitters - slap hitting, bunting, and power hitting to be able to compete at a level with unbelievable talent at all age groups. As both his daughters are also pitchers, they had pitching instruction from ex -collegiate softball pitchers Sandra Durazo of San Diego State, who  also played in the Pro League in Italy, and Sophie Contreras, Oklahoma University,  who taught the girls several pitches from the fastball to curve ball, screw ball, rise ball, and drop ball as well as the change up.   

Over the years of catching and practicing with his girls he began to help his pitchers on his teams to develop these pitches and mechanics as well , and continues to do so as he is the assistant Head Coach and hitting coach for the NH Lightning 12U Travel Ball Team in Concord.  He is currently developing a competitive 12U team that plans to attend ASA Nationals this year.He has also utilized a fielding technique widely known and used in California known as ”the Howard Kobata technique”.   Because softball differs from baseball in that the base path is 30 feet shorter than baseball ,  there is less time to field and throw out base runners.   The technique is crucial to young players developing skills necessary to complete plays with speedy base runners, the same would apply to outfield techniques.  For young players it is essential to be taught to field and throw correctly and to avoid injury by using just the arm and shoulder to throw especially from the outfield.

All of Coach Manny’s teams in California had paid monthly clinics with Howard to insure the defense had proper fielding instruction to be able to compete at the extreme competition level of ASA.   Over the years Coach Manny has used these techniques with all his teams as early as 10U to develop players to take them to the next level of play and put them in the right direction of development and skill.

Coach Manny also provides individual paid lessons at his home for those interested in developing their softball career for high school and college level experience.