Tyler Goecker and Lawson Woods wanted to become stronger in certain parts of their game, so they decided to attend the Trinity Lutheran Boys Basketball Camp this week in the Bollinger Athletic Complex.

“I’m just trying to get better shooting, and my defense,” Woods said. “I need to get better shooting jump shots. I enjoy offense. I enjoy everything about basketball. I’ve enjoyed everything about the camp, especially the scrimmaging.”

Goecker and Woods, who will be teammates on the eighth-grade team at Immanuel Lutheran School this winter, said this is their fourth year attending the camp.

Goecker said he likes to play on the perimeter and has confidence in shooting 3-pointers.

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“I like to shoot from the wings,” he said. “I need to work on my ball handling and my jump shot. I like driving the lane a lot. On defense I try to make sure they don’t dribble into the lane and get a free shot.”

Camp director Brian Stuckwisch said a total of 40 boys attended the camp.

They were divided into two groups, Grades 2 to 5 and 6 to 8.

The younger group concentrated on the basics of the game, while the older group worked on more advanced skills.

“We went through a lot of drills, passing, dribbling, rebounding, defensive stances, just the fundamental stuff,” Stuckwisch said of the younger group.

“We tried to keep it on a lower level for the younger boys and teach them some drills, but they like to have fun, so we included a lot of games, scrimmaging after that.”

Stuckwisch, the head boys basketball coach at Trinity Lutheran this coming season, said on Monday the coaches took time to get to know all the kids, getting associated with who they were and what school they were from and worked on the basics, and showed and taught them the drills.

“They caught on pretty quick, and Tuesday and Wednesday they did the drills all by themselves with the upperclassmen helping them,” he said. “Thursday was really a fun day where we had a hotshot competition and handed out certificates. It was more of a fun day.

“We did a lot of 3-on-3. We did 5-on-5 but with the younger group 3-on-3 works a lot better. Everybody touches the ball and everybody moves more and there is more space where they can get along together, so 3-on-3 works a lot better with the younger group.”

With the older kids, the camp focused on refining the basics.

“We actually challenged (the older group) with more difficult drills, some of the drills the high school boys do, and we had the high school boys play with them, scrimmage against them,” Stuckwisch said. “They really like the competition where at the end of the camp they were wanting to play the high school boys. It was real interesting to see them progress.

“They played a lot of full court and they played a lot with the high school, so that gave them some more competition.”

The coach said activities on the final day of the camp for the older group included a 3-point contest and a hotshot contest.

This is the first year Stuckwisch has ran the camp, and she said it was an enjoyable experience.

“I put a survey out and got a lot of feedback from the parents and the kids and said they really enjoyed it and they want to do it again,” he said.

“A lot of the comments were they wanted more days and longer hours, so they all had fun.”