Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
STAFF WRITER
The Clovis Wildcats are picking up the habit of picking up the pace.
New Wildcat coach and longtime assistant Scott Robinson, said the summer session for the boys basketball program has included a few strides, but also signs of a lot of work to do to play an uptempo game a young Wildcats squad may need against a District 4-6A that is all but likely to outsize them.
“We have good athletes,” Robinson said, “so this type of basketball fits the players we have in Clovis. Defensively, we’ve got a lot of work to do. We want to pressure the basketball, whether it’s in the fullcourt or the halfcourt.”
The Wildcats are coming off a weekend at a tournament in Roswell, and will bring the varsity team to St. Michael’s on Friday and Saturday while the junior varsity team competes in an Eastern New Mexico University team camp.
“It has been pretty good,” guard Tristen Pautler said. “It’s a learning experience. If you go all out, they’re not going to pull you for one mistake, as long as you play hard and you play really good defense.”
Pautler is one of six remaining roster players from last season’s squad, which went 12-16 and missed out on the Class 5A playoffs.
Clovis is filling this week with its annual fundamentals camp, which ends today. Robinson said there were 140 campers — 56 in the older camp for grades 6-9 and 84 in the younger camp for kindergarten through fifth grade.
“Great turnout, really, for the K-5 camp,” Robinson said. “We’re looking to get that over 100 in the future, but that was a good turnout.”
Robinson said in past years, Clovis would hold a summer league for area teams, but many of those teams scattered to other leagues and the goal is to try to revive the league next summer.