KAPA‘A — Basketballs and tennis balls mixed it up on the floor of the Bernice Hundley Gym in Kapa‘a Saturday.
That was just one of the drills taught to about 30 girl high school basketball players at the one-day camp coordinated by former Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation basketball coach Kevin Medeiros.
“It’s all about getting our players to be on the same level as the rest of the state,” Medeiros said. “On O‘ahu, the players there have an opportunity to access this talent. But on Kaua‘i, we have just three teams and in order for our players to get better, or to be able to get the same kind of instruction, they must fly to O‘ahu.”
The Saturday camp was designed for girl high school basketball players and comes on the heels of a successful two-day camp for the boys that was held the previous weekend.
“We have teams from both Kaua‘i High School and Kapa‘a High School,” Medeiros said. “That makes the camps worthwhile because the schools are taking advantage of what these former university players have to offer.”
Medeiros said at last week’s camp for boys, the first time for this island, Waimea High School’s Junior Varsity coach Kawika Smith had the JV team in attendance, and Island School had a few players come to the event as well. Kaua‘i and Kapa‘a high schools had almost its entire JV and varsity teams in attendance.
Kaua‘i High School coach Russ Grady had his team at last Sunday’s ball handling clinic headed by Agena before getting the girls to Kapa‘a, Medeiros said, noting his disappointment in not having the Waimea players taking advantage of the opportunities.
Additionally, Medeiros said one of the Kapa‘a coaches told him how informative the sessions were and they are incorporating what they learned into the team’s daily boys’ practice routines.
Heading the boys’ camp were coaches Merv Lopes and Dennis Agena, both well-known names in basketball. Joining the pair were coaches Scott LaBoy of Iolani, Keith Spencer of Leilehua and coach Jeff Hiro of Castle High School.
Lopes is no stranger to Kaua‘i, having led the recent Team Central basketball clinic at the Wilcox Gym at Island School. This clinic was open to community basketball players, but high school players took advantage of the opportunity to learn from the leader of the well-known Big Man Clinics on O‘ahu.
Saturday’s camp for the girls was the third hosted by Medeiros and was led by former University of Hawai‘i players Nani Cockett, Kyla Evers and Kii Spencer-Vasconcelles. They were joined by Brandy Richardson, a former University of California, Santa Barbara standout and Tiana Fuertes of Utah.
One of the early drills involved the girls breaking down into two-person teams where one player would toss the tennis ball to the other who would have to catch the tennis ball and return it to her partner while dribbling the basketball throughout the process.
If the dribbling player missed the tennis ball, she would have to retrieve it and return it without stopping the dribble.
Other drills involved strengthening the arms by “shooting” the basketball while lying down and skill drills involving one-handed shooting.
Medeiros said the camps were made possible through the help of the county’s Parks and Recreation Department. All of the players attending both camps were able to do so free of charge.
“The coaches are willing and want to teach the kids,” Medeiros said. “Some of them said they would pay their own way here — we just need to find them places to stay.”
• Dennis Fujimoto, photographer and staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 253) or dfujimoto@kauaipubco.com
