Faith Academy girls basketball completes summer skills training
Though the high school basketball season doesn’t start until November, the Faith Academy of Marble Falls girls basketball team participated in six weeks of work led by new head coach Harvey Vaughn.
Fourteen players made their way to The Fire Pit gym on the Faith campus with 11 of those athletes playing high school basketball.
“I’m glad we had a bunch of girls come every day,” Vaughn said. “We’re trying to be strategic in keeping the girls engaged on what we’re doing.”
The Lady Flames met twice a week for two-hour sessions for “pure skills training.”
“It was all ball handling, passing, how to dribble between the legs, behind the back, two-ball dribbling,” Vaughn said. “It was to develop the ball handling we need.”
When Vaughn accepted the job, one big objective was to teach every athlete how to handle the ball as a guard. He viewed the last six weeks as an opportunity to introduce those concepts.
“I was happy and surprised at the skill level of the incoming freshmen,” he said. “I was very encouraged by the openness and willingness to try new things. When you have to push yourself at the beginning, you’re able to get better. I thought the girls did a great job of pushing themselves.”
He agreed that changing up drills with a key emphasis on ball handling doesn’t keep athletes mentally engaged for two hours. That’s why he added other challenges once he saw the players were getting the hang of the basic drill.
“We added and started to combine skills together to make it progressively harder,” he said.
One was splitting the players into three lines for ball-handling races that ended with making a lay-up. But the key was that players couldn’t finish their leg of the race without scoring. By adding other challenging parts to drills, the players simply concentrate on each part of the drill and react, which is a big key in the sport.
“That gives them more things to do,” the coach said. “I try to incorporate fun games that add multiple skills and overload their thinking.”
Vaughn commended the players for their efforts in trying each drill, noting the Lady Flames weren’t afraid to have a mishap with a caveat.
“As long as you can get them to feel safe,” he said. “We were highly encouraged with it. It goes along with helping them improve.”
The program still has an opening for an assistant coach. Interested applicants can contact Faith Academy.
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