Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The Bainbridge High School Varsity Lady Cats Basketball team has had a busy summer, playing 24 games and ending with a 15-9 record.

Head Coach Kelvin Cochran said the goal of summer play is to get a feel for the upcoming season and to help younger players gain game experience.

Cochran said the team played games at Valdosta State University, Troy, Moultrie, Mitchell County and Thomas County Central.

“I saw a lot of improvement during those games,” Cochran said.

Cochran said these camps were the first time he’s seen some of the girls since the season ended.

“Some missed spring conditioning because they were still under COVID-19 protocol,” he said.

Key player Taralyn Brown was also noticeably absent from the camps.

Cochran said Brown hurt herself in a post-season game and recently underwent knee surgery. While Brown was not at camp, Cochran is hoping to have her back in time for the 2021-2022 basketball season.

Cochran added that a lot of these camps and games required coaching on the run.

“We would play 10 games in a series of two days,” he said. “There wasn’t a lot of in-between time.”

Those 10 games resulted in an 8-2 record.

The first four games were played at Troy, where the team went 4-0, while the remaining six were played at a camp in Moultrie. There, the team went 4-2.

During the camps, Cochran’s goal was to see what players would step up and replace the seniors who just graduated.

As of now, Cochran has his eye on Elexis Warner to replace Anndrea Porter.

“During the camps, she played good defense and I was really pleased with her,” he said. “We’ve still got to get better at shooting the ball, though.”

While Warner was showing off her skillset to Cochran, rising senior Detavia Salter was attending an Elite Camp at Georgia Southwestern State University.

Although Cochran hated to see Salter miss their camps, he was extremely proud to hear Salter received her first offer to play for GSW.

Salter was able to return in time to share the news and play in a game against Tift, where she entered the last 10 minutes.

The junior varsity team also accompanied the Lady Cats to the camps.

Their summer record was 9-8, but Cochran said he saw a huge improvement in the J.V.

“There’s no substituting game experience for these girls,” he said. “We played schools that were larger and smaller than us.”

Cochran said following these camps he feels confident in what the 2021-2022 season will bring.

“They played hard this summer,” he finished.