By Wayne witkowski
Staff Writer
BRICK TOWNSHIP — Play ball!
That might be the familiar sound of the summer for the many youngsters playing baseball and softball. But for many, summertime means picking up a larger ball and firing it at a net.
While many students take their activities outdoors, "gym rat" basketball players are inside, playing on a hardwood surface, and refining their skills for a sport that is concentrated in colder weather, later in the year.
Throughout June and early July, the gyms at Brick Township and Brick Memorial were filled with kids participating in summer basketball camps. Brick Township girls coach Mark Truhan ran one at his school, for girls, and Brick Memorial boys coach Ron Gerulfsen had one at his school, for boys.
Both were highly successful, with attendance at Truhan’s camps up 50 percent and "succeeding expectations," because serious players nowadays realize that the only way to get better is to put in the time when games and practices aren’t being held. Over 20 girls entering eighth and seventh grade at their schools participated in the Brick Township camp, with five or six of them coming from out of town. Half of the girls from Brick who were at the camp the previous week for incoming 10th and ninth graders will attend cross-town rival Brick Memorial in the fall, but that doesn’t bother Truhan.
"I’m not here just for the Brick Dragons, but for every girl who wants to play basketball," said Truhan, who, last week, was an instructor at the Eastern Invitational at Rutgers University, and who is at the Keystone State Camp in Pennsylvania this week. "This is not a camp for baby-sitters. We want to put the game into their hands, [show them] how to set their feet, when to shoot, how to pass, how to move without the ball, how to do the right things, how to look up and dribble without passing or without looking at the ball, so you can get the ball better."
Camps back in the 1970s involved the best players. By the 1980s, it was the starting players as well as the stars. But nowadays, even the players who may barely wind up coming off the bench for their high school teams have a need to go to camp.
"These kids are here because they want to be here," said Gail Caverly, a high school girls’ varsity coach at Point Pleasant, who was at the camp. "The competition level is so much greater today than it used to be. If a kid wants to play, that kid needs to do the work, unless that kid is that gifted that he or she doesn’t need to put in as much time.
"In order to compete at the high school level, you have to be committed, and there are a lot of opportunities out there for the girls that weren’t there before. This is part of character building. If they can make it through this and the grueling times, they’ll be able to handle things that come their way."
That idea was not lost on the campers.
"I’m kind of surprised because I thought camp would mean we would just play against each other, but the calisthenics are so great. I didn’t expect that," said Kayla Hense of Point Pleasant Borough.
"Basketball is not just from Thanksgiving through February," said Truhan. "You have to get in the weight room. You have to play summer leagues and go to camp to succeed fundamentally."
The camp ran from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday through Friday, and devoted as much time on conditioning drills as fundamentals at 14 different stations. Many girls came away with drills they can use to sharpen their skills. They were enthused but still dreaded some the conditioning drills they knew were coming as part of their daily routine.
"What we do is what we’ll be doing for tryouts in high school," said Carly Snodgrass, who will be a seventh-grader at Lake Riviera Middle School. "It’s fun but it’s the camp you do the most at. If you want to get better, you have to keep working at it."
"If you can’t dribble over the three-point line once to the basket, you’re not going to get to the high school level," said Truhan. "If you can’t make a skip pass — a pass on the fly — you know what you need to work on."
"We’re not focusing on one thing but everything," said Amy Nelson, an incoming eighth-grader who played on Lake Riviera’s Ocean County middle school’s championship team last season.
Nelson received the Defense award at the end of the camp, while Jana McCabe got Most Valuable Player. Elana Metzger got Most Improved, and her sister, Becky, got the Hustle award.
Truhan said the worst habit many young girls have on the court is catching the pass and landing on one foot with the other one jabbing forward.
"If you land on both feet, you can use either one as a pivot foot," said Truhan. "You’re not committed to doing anything. You always have fundamental adjustments at this age level. You have to break it down. It’s the simple things."
Like shooting free throws. Many were a little tentative to step to the line and shoot 30.
"It all starts mentally," said Truhan. "You have to think in your head right away, think that you can make it. If not, you’re lost already."
And thinking means knowing what you’re going to do before every move, and having the confidence that you’re going to do it, said Truhan.
Hoop notes:
— Kathy DeTata, the Shore area’s leader in points and steals last season for Brick Township, and younger sister Alessandra are playing on the Shore Stars AAU team in national showcases at Penn State last week and in Washington D.C. this week.
"Kathy has improved her game so much," said Truhan, who said there is increasing interest shown from NCAA Division I college programs.
— Brick Township will play in the WOBM Classic at Toms River North over the Christmas holidays.
— It will be a different feeling when Truhan’s Brick Township team plays Toms River South, as his brother left as head coach to take over at Colts Neck.