Boys improve skills at Trinity camp

Sports camps are taking place all over the area, and that includes the boy's basketball camp at Trinity Lutheran High School this week.

Jon Sprengel, head boy's basketball coach at Trinity Lutheran High School, is holding two camps, one for third-through-fifth grade boys, and one for sixth-eighth grade boys.

"We try to focus on ball handling and shooting fundamentals for the younger kids,"
 Sprengel said. "The philosophy we've had is if they can improve on those that's going to help them down the road. Obviously, as they get bigger and stronger they'll be able to do more things defensively.

"We try to focus more on the skills where they're handling the basketball. We work with them on their footwork.

"With the older kids we do a lot of similar type things, but some more advanced drills, some things that we do in our own practices. We do some of the things that the younger kids do, but just try to do it at a faster pace, or add one additional thing to a particular drill."

Springel said there are 15 boys attending the third-through-fifth grade camp, and 12 attending the sixth-eighth camp, and most of the participants are from Immanuel, St. John's Sauers and White Creek Lutheran schools.

"With the older kids we don't spend a lot of time on defensive stuff. We really focus on offensive skills," Sprengel said. "Ball-handling and shooting are the main things, and we try to keep it fun, too. We have our shooting contest and team contest. We have kids from different schools and we try to get them to work together. We do some three-on-three and five-on-five things."

Derrick Shelley, one of the camp counselors said, "I enjoy the fact that they look up to me and I can teach them how to play and how to conduct themselves on the floor, sportsmanship really.

"I teach them ball-handling skills, and good form in their shooting. We work with them dribbling right-handed and left-handed. Most of our campers are right-handed so we try to get them to dribble left-handed.

"We do defensive slide drills where we teach them how to get in defensive position and how to slide without hopping, and without reaching. We tell them to have their hands in a good position.

"I look forward to coming out here every summer and helping the kids as much as I can. It's a lot of fun," Shelley is helping at the camp for the third year in a row.

One of the campers was Jonathan Rollins, who will be an eighth-grader at St. John's "This is my third year coming here," he said. "I learn ball handling and working on my shot. We shoot a lot of free throws.

"We do some defensive drills. I like playing man-to-man defense. I'm having a lot of fun."

One of the boys in Shelley's younger group was Max Otte, who will be a fourth-grader at Immanuel this fall.

He was wearing an Indiana Pacers uniform with Reggie Miller's No. 31 on the back. "I like shooting around and all kinds of things," Otte said.

"I'm a guard. They're teaching us ball handling, defense and free throw shooting. I like to play man-to-man. I like to play defense."

Shelley said, "With the older kids we're teaching them teamwork and reinstating their fundamentals. Some of them forget over the summer because they're not in a gym. We do more scrimmaging with them, getting them to play against a defense."

Sprengel said, "We always tell them if they can take two or three things from all of what we did this week to work on those two or three things, and then next year work on two or three other things, and hopefully by the time they're eighth grade looking to go to high school, they'll have a pretty good foundation."