TIFTON — Girls basketball at Tift County High slowed down for three days this week, but the players had to arguably speed up.

The players aided head coach Julie Conner with the annual Pee-Wee camp at the high school and all hands were needed on deck to handle the rush of young hoops players.

Conner said 60 were in attendance for the camp, which started Monday and ended Wednesday and was open for youths ages kindergarten to fifth grade.

“It’s been years since I’ve had 60,” she said.

Lady Devils players and assistants manned stations, which ranged from defense to ballhandling and seemed to make use of every basketball to be found in the county.

Conner is thinking about taking the camp concept a step further next year, inspired by what she saw at Buford High School when the Lady Devils visited there last week.

Buford has a “breakfast club” concept, said Conner.

These are morning sessions with young players for several weeks.

“Intense fundamentals,” said Conner. “Definitely something I want to instill.”

Gene Durden, the Buford coach in charge of the summer sessions, has certainly used them for maximum success in building up his program.

A city school system, Buford won the state championship in 2017, Durden’s fifth at the school and all coming in the last 10 years. On two other occasions, the program has been runners-up in the tournament.

Durden’s morning system starts players in about second grade, said Conner.

Conner went back and forth between activities, giving pep talks to campers and even serving as a passing partner on rebound drills where players were told to look down the court for an outlet pass.

Working this age of players is something that Conner loves doing.

She feeds off their passion.

“Their energy,” is what Conner said she enjoyed the most, “their absolute love for the game.”

Players weren’t always still when she called for time between sessions and during breaks. Their constant dribbling of basketballs when told not to do so might bother other coaches.

Not Conner.

“I love that,” she said. “They wanted the basketballs.”

Besides working on individual skills, the camp combined them with scrimmages and “hotspots” competition, the latter being a contest to see who can make the most shots from designated spots on the court.

The youngest of the group had to work with a makeshift goal — a normal basketball goal for high school games, but lowered all the way to the floor.

An actual child’s goal and basketballs were used in years past, but Conner said the hoop had to be retired this year. It had fallen apart from lots of use, especially slam dunks.