ANSONIA – For a second consecutive year the Wilmington College women’s basketball team led a camp for Ansonia’s girls basketball program at the high school.
Ansonia had 34 high school and junior high girls attend the two-day camp on Monday and Tuesday, which lasted three hours a day. The camp provided a great opportunity to reinforce messages, Ansonia varsity girls basketball coach Jim Bolin said.
“I think it’s always good to hear what I want to say from someone else,” he said. “During the season they’ll hear me talking all the time, but when it comes from a fresh set of lips I think it’s more beneficial.”
The camp was led by Wilmington assistant women’s basketball coach Allan King. He brought Wilmington players Emily Smith, a sophomore from Bellbrook, and A.J. Arling, a freshman from Minster, to help lead the drills.
“The biggest thing that I was impressed with was their attitude and their effort,” said King, a former girls basketball coach at Russia High School. “They had a great attitude about everything, and they gave great effort the whole time.”
King leads camps at Ansonia, Washington Court House and also back at Wilmington College, where the Quakers also host shootouts for high school teams.
The camp focused on fundamentals including defense, shooting, ball handling, pivots and jump stops.
“I told them fundamentals makes the game of basketball more fun,” King said. “I said it’s at the beginning of the word for a reason. So we spent a lot of time on some basic fundamentals of shooting and ball handling but spent a ton of time with pivots, jump stops and pivots.”
Bolin said he saw some good progress from his team during the camp. He likes the talent his team possesses and thinks the Tigers are poised for another strong season.
“I think we’ll be pretty competitive,” Bolin said. “We have to figure out some scoring – we lost 30 points (a game) from Abby (Helmke) and Brooke (Neal). We’ve got a core back, a good core coming back. We’ve got a trio of good guards, and we’ve got Kassy (Wentworth) that will be moving up (to varsity), give us a little bit of height. As a matter of fact this will probably be the biggest team I’ve had since I’ve been here.”
King, who is married to the former Maria Barga of Ansonia, said he enjoyed his time at Ansonia’ scamp.
“I always love being in Darke County, and we love getting kids from Darke County,” said King, whose team at Wilmington includes Mississinawa Valley’s Mackenzie Dirmeyer and Versailles’ Emily Harman. “We’d like to get a few more.”