PITSBURG – When Franklin Monroe’s youth girls basketball camp ended Friday morning, Lady Jet coach Abbey Moore found herself wishing it would continue longer.
“It went great,” Moore said. “Here at the end of camp I told myself I wished it was longer. I wish we had a few more days. It went so well. All the girls enjoyed themselves. They had fun. They improved their skills.”
The three-day camp included 36 girls in the third through eighth grades. Most of them were from Franklin Monroe, but girls from Arcanum and Mississinawa Valley also participated.
Over the course of the three days, Moore and her high school players taught the campers fundamentals of ball handling, shooting and defense. They seemed to make a lot of progress from the start of camp on Wednesday to its conclusion on Friday.
“These girls, they’re very coachable kids,” Moore said. “They’re all good kids. They took what we taught them, and today it showed.”
The first two days of the camp focused on skill work, and then on Friday the girls had several competitions including spider drill dribbling, a dribble queen competition, a free throw shooting competition, a hot shot competition and a baseline basketball team competition. Awards were presented to competition winners plus the Most Valuable Person and the Lady Jet Award winner.
Along with lessons in basketball, Moore taught the campers about traits including being a good teammate, displaying leadership and doing their best.
“Not only did we learn basketball skills but I try to tie it in to some life lessons as well,” she said.
Moore had 11 high school players help lead the camp. Last year the Jets didn’t even have 11 players in their entire high school program.
“It shows a lot for those girls to come in when they don’t necessarily have to,” Moore said. “They had a big part in what happened here at camp. They did a lot of the instruction. So it’s good for them.”
The high school players displayed great leadership, and the young girls really looked up to them.
“You could see it in their eyes,” Moore said. “You could see them looking up to those older girls and just wanting to be them someday.”
