Lady Cougar basketball wraps up June shootouts

York Comprehensive High School head girls’ basketball coach Marilyn Milton and assistant coach Andrew Dean know a lot more about the Lady Cougar basketball team after 24 shootouts at three high schools and four college campuses.

Milton said she likes what she has seen in offseason workouts since she arrived as head coach at YCHS earlier this year. “June was pretty active,” Melton said after the YCHS girls’ two-day shootout at Wingate University.

“Closing the day with three wins definitely gives us something to build on and to come back to York and be excited about,” she said. “We played 24 games and finished 17-7, competing against a good many quality teams. We did very well.”

Milton lauded the players for buying into the style of play the former Chester coach uses.

“Some of the things we focused on included making sure we transition well and devoting a large portion of our time to defense,” she said. “Much of our focus this summer has been to make sure that we execute in the games those things that we do in practice. I think the girls did a good job.”

Milton said the busy June enabled the coaches to evaluate all of the players and their ability, skill set and basketball IQ.

“Watching the players in the June shootouts, we definitely made sure that everybody played,” said Milton, whose Chester teams won region titles and reached a No. 1 state ranking.

Milton said defensive adjustments were made in the final Saturday game that closed out the summer shootouts with a win.

“We used all of our guards to pretty much guard one player who was definitely a dominant player in order for us to get the win,” said Milton.

For the remainder of the summer offseason, Milton said time will be devoted to weight lifting, agility drills and fine-tuning the players’ individual skill sets.

“We’ll be doing individual workouts with the girls, making sure each one of them gets what they need to improve, so that when we come back in November, they will be even better,” she said.

Milton said the Lady Cougar basketball players will reap the benefits of first-block scheduling for team members when school resumes in August.

“We’re definitely going to take 100 percent advantage of first block at the high school,” she said. “That’ll be the time that we that we get to actually institute our offense and look at film from the summer. We’ll have time to break down the film that shows the things we do well and areas we need to improve on.”

Milton said she looks forward to having first block with the team.

“We will have the opportunity to get those girls who were not here for the summer activities up to par,” she said. “First block will also allow us to help those girls that were here to get better.”

This story was originally published June 29, 2015 at 4:06 PM with the headline "Lady Cougar basketball wraps up June shootouts."