El Dorado girls basketball traveled to Mt. Ida on Tuesday to participate in summer camp games under new head coach Makara Frazier. The Lady Wildcats have 30 junior high girls and 17 varsity girls participating in the trip with Frazier and freshman coach Anthony Farris-King and Barton coach Italei Gray.
“It’s just to give us more experience in each other’s game,” said Frazier, who recently replaced Ashlee Curtis. “As you get some turnovers and bring in those from the ninth grade squad, they’re just used to playing together, working to get a lot of people comfortable playing with everybody.”
The Lady Wildcats play Acorn and Perryville. Junior high plays at Acorn and Waldron.
“It seems that we are on the track that we are, very active in defense, we have many children on the court. We have just adjusted to the growing pains of introducing people to new roles and having to move and know what we want to do and find our identity again as a new collective,” said Frazier.
“We’re looking at what we want to do. We’re going up and down and playing good defense. Just working more together and together. That will come in time as well.”
Frazier was on staff last season as a varsity assistant and JV coach. He is already familiar to most of the players.
“Our ninth graders, we practice from 9 to 12 all the time so I’m very familiar with those kids. As eighth graders, I might not see them all year but I know who they are and I see them every game and know what they look like,” he said. “The seventh graders that came in, I had a few of them when I was in Washington last year. I know most of them from Washington. Knowing the kids, it helps a lot.”
The matches consist of two 15-minute halves. Even with 30 junior high players, Frazier feels they all get time on the court.
At the varsity level, he said they play a three-minute rotation.
“We have to rotate them well. We try to get everyone about three minutes of playing time,” Frazier said. “I think, if we get to where we have a lot of people that can be good and every team is even with effort and their energy is right and they are doing things right and playing Lady Cat basketball, go as much as you can for about three minutes and then let the rest go. We have a good understanding that everybody is going to get out there and give me what you got. “
Building depth at the guard position has been a focus this summer for Frazier, who said fundamentals will continue to be emphasized in the off-season.
“Our focus is to make everyone comfortable on the ball.”
El Dorado is scheduled to travel back to Mt. Next Tuesday.
“I’m happy to get our kids to the gym,” Frazier said. “I think they’re excited to get the ball and compete.”
