Burkey uses team camp to build Eaglettes

Shelbyville Central's Janie Graves scores on a layup between a trio of Cheatham County defenders during team camp play. (T-G Photo by Danny Parker) [Click to enlarge] [Order this photo]

Shelbyville Team Camp No. 1 concluded play Wednesday at five different locations for 28 teams.

Shelbyville Central coach Lynn Burkey was pleased to see the four-day camp go smoothly after having to work around new additions to his school in years past.

"The brightest spot for me is, after three years of dealing with various facets of the construction projects and the way we had to work around those, it is so nice to have our gym upstairs and downstairs, our new cafeteria and be back to running camp the way we have," he said.

It was a series of games for evaluation for Burkey and his staff to assess what they have to work with for the 2009-10 season. They had little time to work with the girls and ran only a small fraction of their offensive and defensive packages during games.

"I'm starting to get a picture in my head of what I want our team to look like next year. Now, we've got to get back into practice next week and start putting those pieces together," Burkey said.

Cascade's M.K. Potts slashes to the basket in the second quarter of the three-point overtime loss to Red Boiling Springs. (T-G Photo by Danny Parker) [Click to enlarge] [Order this photo]

The Golden Eaglettes dominated the fourth quarter to hand Cheatham County a 45-24 loss just prior to lunch time Wednesday.

"You always want to be able to say at the end of camp, 'We're better on Wednesday afternoon than we were on Sunday,' and I think we are," Burkey said. "There's a good spirit about this team. There's a good spirit of teamwork. They get along with each other very well. They like to work with each other very well on and off the court. I think those are positives we can build on to put our team together for next year."

After losing to Clay County 47-45 in the morning session, the Cascade Lady Champions dropped a tight contest with Red Boiling Springs in overtime 54-51.

Shelbyville Team Camp No. 2 is June 14-17 and Burkey has a vision of where he'd like to see his team improve between now and then over the next five practices, noting a need to be more consistent on defense and more fundamentally sound rebounding the basketball.

"Obviously, we don't have that big 6-foot-3 center in the middle," he said. "So, we're going to look at some offenses we think will suit our personnel and let each one of them play to their strengths."

Camp No. 2 organizers are expecting 40 or 41 teams, which would make it one of the more attended camps in quite some time.

With the economy being what it is, the more girls, coaches and fans flooding into Bedford County the better. Burkey has been more than pleased with how the community has embraced camp play this June just as it has in past years.

"I wish I had a way to measure the economic impact, particularly at a time when we need to really stimulate our economy. I think our team camps are our little contribution to that," he said.