PITTSBURG, Kan. – Pitt State’s annual high school team camp is a big undertaking for head coach Amanda Davied and her program.
Over the next 9 days, around 130 teams will play more than 230 games between 11 different locations in the Pittsburg area, including at Pitt State’s John Lance Arena.
“It’s something that’s been established, and so it’s the same dates every year, except for last year, obviously with the pandemic,” says coach Davied, “We’ve had a lot of loyal teams coming over the years, so it was great to see everybody again.”
The first session of the camp started on Wednesday morning.
For the players at Pitt State it puts them on the other side of the game for a couple weeks.
“We get up at 7 AM for weights, and then come up here and work games from nine-to-six,” says senior guard Tristan Gegg.
“They do all the t-shirts, they do the scorekeeping and other stuff,” Davied says of her players, “One of our girls, Shayla Kohler, actually organized the entire dorm setting. She organized 400 kids in the dorms. She wants to get into basketball operations, and so she’s doing some of the logistics with it. It’s really cool. It gets us to work with our kids in a totally different environment.”
It’s also one of the first times incoming freshmen get to work with their new teammates.
“It’s been so much fun. I love being around the girls,” says incoming freshman Karenna Gerber (Halstead HS), “They’re great people and really fun to play with. Getting used to the style of play is a little different than high school, obviously. It’s a lot faster. Having great teammates, they’ve really helped me adjust, and I’m really excited for the season to start.”
“One of the biggest factors is just that they get acclimated to their environment,” Davied says of her incoming players, “It’s not like when they come to campus in August it’s the first time they’ve been here, and it’s just information overload, and stimulus overload.”
“This is a really good chance for the freshmen and incoming people to get acquainted with the team,” Gegg says, “We scrimmage on camp days as well. It’s just a really good time to come together for the first time before the season.”
The first session of Pitt State’s team camp runs from June 9th-June 11th, with the second session running from June 16th-June 18th. Coach Davied says there are 63 teams booked for the first camp, with 73 expected to be in town next week.
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