Seneca Valley girls enjoy southern trip to North Carolina camp
With seven seniors graduated, the Seneca Valley girls basketball team wanted to find a way to establish an identity before it returned to class in the fall.
The Raiders achieved that recently at the Carolina's Finest Team Camp at the University of North Carolina. Seneca Valley's squad earned the accolade of best defensive team at the camp.
“This will be my 20th season of coaching high school basketball, and those were the most enjoyable four days I have had in coaching,” Seneca Valley coach Rob Lombardo said. “The way the North Carolina people treat you is incredible, and the whole camp was organized so well. The level of competition we played was great and to have girls play as well as they did was fantastic.”
Seneca Valley had a busy schedule. The team went to Chapel Hill, N.C., on a Wednesday night. It checked into the camp Thursday morning and went right into game action. The Raiders played eight games in three days. In between, the team ate meals and stayed in dorms on campus.
“It was great for the camaraderie of the team when you're together for 72 hours straight with your teammates,” Lombardo said. “Whatever free time we had, we brought some team building games and activities. From the day you lose in the playoffs, I always say the journey starts until your tipoff tournament starts. You have those months in between to find a team identity. Doing something like this really brings that out.
“The kids were so well behaved, too. The kids took the trip as wanting to get close as a team. I don't think I heard the words ‘I' or ‘me' the entire trip.”
Seneca Valley went 6-2. The losses came to a team from South Carolina and another from Maryland at the buzzer.
“We really, really played well. I think every game was between two and seven points. They were very competitive games,” Lombardo said. “We did a lot of the basic stuff of basketball right. The way we defended was going to pressure the ball and having great help defense and boxing out. Last year, we were so athletic I would have done the team an injustice if we didn't fly up and down the floor. This year's team does a lot of the fundamental things right.
“It just means a lot when you're playing teams from different states and areas. What's amazing to me, giving kudos to Western Pa., and it shows when we go to these camps, when you defend, you can go a long way. We played some quality basketball programs and really did well. We just outworked everybody.”
During one of the team's breaks, it made the short jaunt to visit Duke as well.
“Since Duke is 8 miles away, we went to Cameron Indoor Stadium and the Duke bookstore,” Lombardo said. “When we went to Cameron, we thought we'd just get a chance to see the court. They were hosting a camp that day, and a Duke assistant coach gave all of our girls Duke basketballs. It just added to the trip. They got to truly experience basketball on Tobacco Road.”
The trip benefited the coaches, too. They had a chance to attend a clinic at UNC as well as see their players face some tough competition.
“This was not only a trip for the girls to get to know each other, but for my staff to get to know them and for the girls to get to know my staff and myself, so we can all become one big family,” Lombardo said. “We want to try to put the kids in the best position to be successful. We had a chance to learn where they can be successful and to see them respond to playing a position they've not really played or running a play they've seen, but never really run much. It's good to see them fight through the adversity. It helps build character.”
Joe Sager is a freelance writer.
