Siloam Springs head girls basketball coach Tim Rippy saw some good things from the Lady Panthers at team camp at Harding University last week, but he also saw plenty of things to work on as well.
The a total of 30 Lady Panthers from eighth grade through 12th grade attended the camp in Searcy on July 11-13. It's the third straight year the Lady Panthers have attended the camp.
The varsity went 3-5 overall, while the junior varsity went 7-2, Rippy said.
Rippy doesn't read too much into the varsity's losing record at the camp.
"We probably played better than that at times," Rippy said. "Three of the ball games we led most of the game. We didn't handle end of game situations very well. Part of that is we're not in the mode of practicing those yet."
Part of the end of the game struggles came at the free-throw line, he said.
"We struggled to make free throws," he said, "and at camp that's a killer because the clock is running. One game we lost by four points and we missed 13 free throws. We were aggressive, but we just didn't capitalize.
"We can finish these games. We've got some work some to do."
The Lady Panthers were also an eyelash away from being 4-4 in the tournament. Rippy said Siloam Springs lost a game on its first day to Bentonville by one point.
"We drew up a play for a shot at the buzzer," Rippy said, "and it was successful but after the final horn."
Rippy said the team tried to work on basic stuff during the game and didn't run many set plays.
"That's what summer time is for, to let kids make plays," he said. "I saw a lot of bright spots. We attached the rim very well. That's something we weren't great at a year ago. We got a lot of shots and didn't shoot it particularly well coming off dead period, but we defended hard and played. I thought camp was really good for us because it identified exactly what we needed to work on."
Rippy and his coaching staff came up with four areas of improvement needed between now and the beginning of the season.
Free throws was obviously the first thing, but defensive rebounding from the help side was also an issue.
"When we have good help rotation, the guard on the elbow has got to box out the weakside post," Rippy said. "We gave up some easy stickbacks."
Being able to handle trapping zone defenses also gave the Lady Panthers problems.
"We didn't handle it well at camp," he said. "We're going to have to spend some time in fall and preseason working on those traps again."
Lastly, Rippy said communication on the floor needs to improve.
"We talked about how to implement that into our drill work," he said.
The camp represented the last bit of competitive work for the Lady Panthers this summer.
They also attended a team camp at Rogers High in June before the dead period.
Nearly half the roster of 15 kids will move to volleyball full time next week.
The Lady Panthers will have some open gym time the rest of this week and next week before taking off the final two weeks before school starts.
Junior varsity
The Lady Panthers junior varsity team finished 7-2 at the camp, but the team's final record could have easily have been 8-1, Rippy said.
The Lady Panthers lost their final game of the camp to Paragould on a circus behind-the-back shot at the buzzer.
"They played really well," Rippy said of the JV kids. "They guarded well and executed offensively. I'm really proud of them."
Sports on 07/19/2016