P.C. standouts run Mavericks Camp

The community of Whitewater nearly doubled in size last week as the school hosted its second annual North Country Maverick's Basketball camp. Seventy-plus campers attended the camp which featured many former local standout basketball players. Including current college players Jace Anderson and Kendall Denham, who played basketball for the Saco-Whitewater Panthers and Malta Mustangs respectively.

The camp hosted 18 fourth through seventh grade boys, 19 fourth through seventh grade girls, 15 high school boys and 18 high school girls.

"Those are good numbers," Whitewater Superintendent Darin Cummings told the PCN.

Cummings believes that the camp's coaches were a major reason the camp was a success.

In addition to Anderson and Denham, the camp also featured Coaches Amber Erickson, Charlene Wasson and Linda Hudyma (Cummings).

"When you get five current or ex college basketball players helping them out... That's a lot of basketball knowledge," Cummings told the PCN.

Last year's camp was just for girls and the camp went over so well, local athletes wanted a camp for the boys.

"After we did the camp, we had a lot of people asking me, why we didn't have boys and if we could have boys," Cummings said.

Cummings then offered to help organize a boy's camp alongside the girls' camp as long as two coaches were able to run it. He called Anderson and Denham who are both currently guards playing basketball for Montana State University in Billings.

The two Yellowjackets were willing to oblige, not having to organize the camp.

Anderson is in his final season at MSUB.

"It's been really fun," Anderson said. "It's good to get all the surrounding area kids here to play some basketball. It's all I did in the summer growing up. I'm glad that I can come back, give back and help them get a little better."

Denham has led Malta to back to back State B Titles in 2012 and 2013. He is currently a junior at MSUB.

"It's been good," Denham said. "It's always good to come back and do these types of camps. We do it often at MSUB but it's nice to get back to where you're from and seeing all the kids that grew up watching you play develop their own game."

The groups spent time together for warm-ups and ball-handling drills but for a majority of the camp the groups separated for one on one, three on three, free throw drills, knockout and other drills.

"We don't pit them against each other in anything," Cummings said. "It might be fun but we had better not."

The camp had kids from several different areas throughout the Hi-Line and many of the kids who attended compete against Phillips County teams in the area.

"We have kids from Froid, Scobey, a number of kids from Turner, we even have a kid from Harlowtown," Cummings said. "We have quite a few Malta kids, some Hinsdale, Saco and Whitewater kids. That's a lot of towns."

Cummings even had Riley Rust, his nephew from Texas stop by for camp in between his family's move from Texas to Alaska.

Individual Winners from camp were:

Hot Shot: 4th-5th Girls - Dylan Simonson, Boys - Carson Ottinger / 6th-7th Girls - Kylee Nelson, Boys - Jon Siewing / 8th-12th Girls- Sophia Stiles, Boys - Trace Simonson

Free Throws: 4th-5th Girls - Paige Wasson, Boys - Ryan Doyle / 6th-7th Girls - Kylee Nelson, Boys- Jared Eggebrecht / 8th-12th Girls - Taylor Eggebrecht, Boys - Christian Menge

1 on 1 : 4th-5th Girls – Teagan Erickson, Boys - Treyton Wilke / 6th-7th Girls - Kylee Nelson, Boys - Jared Eggebrecht / 8th-12th Girls - Sophia Stiles, Boys - Trace Simonson

4 on 4 Champions: 4th-7th Girls - Montaya Idler, Kylee Nelson, Paige Wasson, Cassidy Grabofsky, Boys-Jon Siewing, Jared Eggebrecht, Carson Maloney, Taylor Score / 8th-12th Girls - Sophia Stiles, Jada Sudbrack, Jaydyn Erickson, Hannah Anderson, Taylor Gilkerson, Boys - Trace Simonson, John McColly, John Ray Taylor, Riley Rust.