Lady Wildcats host basketball team camp

By Tony Burns

Sports Editor

The Lady Wildcats Basketball Team Camp featured a lot of familiar faces Monday and Tuesday at Wildcat Arena. Former El Dorado coach Stephen Harshaw brought up his team from Shreveport Southwood. Former Camden Fairview coach Ronald Rogers also came with a stellar group from Little Rock Christian.

“We had eight solid teams in it,” said El Dorado coach Destinee Rogers. “There were no blowouts except for teams that played Little Rock Christian. They were the team that stood out above everybody else. But, it was great competition. We had to work every game. It’s always exciting to get those teams to come down to South Arkansas to play.”

Monticello, Magnolia, Beebe, Warren and Hot Springs were other schools who participated.

Rogers, who is the daughter of Little Rock Christian’s coach, will have to wait before she can have family bragging rights.

“It’s not fun right now because they’re so talented. But, I tell him all the time, ‘You won’t always have those kids and I’m getting my young kids ready for you.’ He’s not going to always whip up on me,” she said.

“It’s always great to play against Coach Harshaw. He coaches his kids. They play hard. They’re real scrappy. It’s always good to go up against teams like this. It’s always great to get him to come home where he’s done great things. We appreciate him coming down. I’m just excited we got so many teams here. Last year we had five teams. This year we had eight. Hopefully, we can grow it year-by-year.”

After a slow start, the Lady Wildcats finished strong on Tuesday.

“I thought it went pretty well. Our first day wasn’t so good. But the second day, I thought we showed some really good things,” said Rogers. “They played extremely hard. We had some things that happened on the first day that we corrected on the second day. So, I wasn’t so much pleased with the first day but I’m very, very pleased with the second day - JV and varsity. They played hard. They did the little things. I can live with the results of the day.”

Overall, the coach was pleased with her team’s effort. El Dorado even got a boost when senior Breya Clark made an early return from a track exhibition in Australia.

“I thought varsity-wise today, all my seniors but I really thought Tasia Richardson stepped up. Breya (Clark) just got back from Australia and she came and played a full day of games. Jessica Morton has stepped up big time. I mean, she’s playing defense. She’s an offensive threat. Diamond Hawthorne is crashing the boards the way we want her to,” said Rogers.

“JV-wise, I’m really excited about Jada Williams, Erica Moore, Toshia Edmundson. They’re playing hard. They’re learning every day and I wore Toshia out today because she played all five games. But, I know how good these young ones can be so I’m trying to give them as much game-time as I can. They get out there and they play hard and they’re very scrappy. That’s the way we want to be. I’m really proud of them.”

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