Your future, our focus
BY SETH ROMSA TRIBUNE SPORTS WRITER
Courtesy of the Powell Tribune
The summer heat didn’t keep the kids out of Cabre Gym last week, with 157 kids from ages 3 all the way up to incoming high school seniors coming out to improve their skills at the Trapper volleyball camp from July 10-14.
“We love it, it’s exciting,” Trapper volleyball coach Scott Keister said. “It’s nice to have noise in the gym again, it’s been a quiet summer.”
Throughout the week, Keister alongside some incoming players, his wife and coaches, were able to help coach the kids through three different sessions a day.
High school players came twice a day on Monday and Tuesday before finishing up Wednesday morning, while middle school age kids came Wednesday afternoon through Friday.
“It was nice to see younger high school kids who want to improve their skills and then some older high school players that we are looking at,” Keister said. “We ask all the kids why they want to be here and they say, ‘We wanna get better and it’s fun’ and you can’t ask for more than that.”
He said elementary school age kids came for an hour all five days, helping him understand that the program needs to offer more opportunities for kids to come out and play throughout the year.
“I underestimated what was going to happen,” Keister said. “I’ve learned that we need to offer more camps for elementary school and younger kids.”
He said he was anticipating maybe 30 kids to attend the camp from that age group, and they ended up having 60.
Keister said they were able to have six players from the 2023 team in attendance to help with the camp at various points, with five staying all of the days to help teach the kids.
“It’s awesome to have them here and they are starting to get to know each other,” Keister said. “I’m starting to learn a little more about them.”
Heading into the fall, Keister said he knows it will be harder to offer more camps to high school and middle school age players but is hoping to offer more especially to the youngest groups of kids.
“We are already looking at doing one on July 31 for anybody that wants to show up. We will have our whole team here and they can meet the team,” Keister said. “We will look at doing two-hour clinics every few weeks throughout the season to get some excitement for kids to come and watch these players.”
The fun didn’t stop there as Northwest offered a fun, new, Queen of the Trappers competition July 15 that allowed players to come in and compete to see who was the best of the best.
That will be followed by more action this upcoming week, as high school teams from around Wyoming and Montana are coming to Northwest to take part in a team camp on July 24-25.
He said that at least 13 teams are coming to team camp, and it will likely consist of some sort of pool play or round robin followed by a tournament style or matchup between evenly matched teams in round robin play.
“It’s a chance for these teams to get these kids in the gym and see what they’ve got,” Keister said.