Morehead State Head Coach Holly Bruder Finds Coach Nemo!

Holly Bruder a highly successful coach at Denison University in Ohio, began her first season as the head softball coach at Morehead State in 2007 - 2008. Bruder takes over the Eagle softball program after six seasons at Dension, three of which resulted in the Big Red advancing to the NCAA Decision III championships.

After a stellar prep career at Rogers City (Mich.) High School, Bruder was a four-year letter winner and standout softball and soccer player at Alma College. She helped Alma win three conference titles and advance to the Decision III College World Series in 1999.

She began her coaching career at Albion College in Michigan in 1999 and 2000 where she was an assistant coach. In her short time there, she helped transform at downtrodden program into a contender, helping guide the team into the conference tournament for the first time in three decades. From there, she spent one season as assistant softball coach and head women's tennis coach at Bluffton College in 2001, where her twin sister Heather is the current head softball coach. She helped Bluffton to the league's best record and spot in the tournament.

Bruder complied a 145-105 (.580 winning percentage) record in six seasons at Denison, including going 63-28 (.692) in the last two seasons. Also, the Big Red were 31-5 at home in 2006 and 2007. Her teams captured four North Coast Athletic Conference regular season titles during her six-year tenure.

Among her other activities, Bruder coaches the USA Athletes softball teams, where she has had the opportunity to travel to Germany, Aruba and Australia as ambassador for the game. She is also an ASA and NSA certified umpire and was on the Central Region All-America Committee from 2003-2006.

Coach Bruder has this to say about Coach Nemo and using his Speed Training Bat during tenure at Denison University.

"Nemo's Speed Hitting Program changed the way we approached hitting at Denison University. When I started coaching at Denison six years ago, the softball team was entering its fifth season as a NCAA member and part of the NCAC conference. Prior to that, the softball team was simply a "club" sport. The team knew the fundamentals, and had the foundation to go somewhere. When I entered the scene, I wanted to take this program to the next level. Look past the conference championship and ahead to a regional championship and start competing against the best programs out there.

I graduated from a program which concentrated on defense which worked for us. Taking that philosophy and integrating it into the Denision Softball program, I found one problem. Yes, we were holding opponents to 2 or 3 runs per game with our strong pitching and leading the league in defensive stats, but we were still loosing, scoring only 1 to 2 runs ourselves. This all changed 3 years ago when I began using the Speed Training Bats by Nemo. We worked on hitting as much as we did defense but with a different mentality. We worked on getting our hands through the zone with power and precision. With the drills from Nemo's Speed Hitting Program video and confidence we brought to the plate, we started winning more games at the plate. We were still holding teams to 3 runs a game, but we started scoring 5 to 6 runs a game.

Taking this hitting approach into the spring 2006 season, Denison University softball program won the regular season NCAC (North Coast Athletic Conference) championship, hosted the NCAC tournament and won in the championship game in the bottom of the seventh inning by a walk off homerun. We continued our success and advanced to the Regional Championships!."

Nemo's Speed Hitting Program is the recipient of the #1 New Product of the Year Award. This includes Nemo's Speed Training Bat, three instructional videos, and his NEW Triple Hitting Tee!

This innovative program follows a speed circuit training format utilizing underloading drills with high volumes of repetitions to increase bat speed and reaction time. Coach Nemo says, "If you want to increase bat speed as well as reaction time you must finally pit that bad on your shoulder and swing it as fast as you can swing a bat. In simple terms, one must move the muscle or bat in the direction of speed to increase bat speed."

"Your product is one of the few products that can truly be used for baseball and softball. It really does what it says it will do!"

Dr. Ron Neobe, PhD & Dr. Mark McDowell, PhD

B&N Baseball and Softball Awards