Girls ages 10 through 18 invaded Lantz Arena as the Girls Individual Basketball Skills Camp kicked off Sunday.

Brady Sallee, Eastern women’s head basketball coach, said that the camp is a good starting point for fundamentals.

The camps focus on the team, as well as the individual aspects of basketball, Sallee said.

The coaches also work on teaching the campers the terminology of the game.

Rekha Hollomon, assistant women’s basketball coach, said that campers wake up, eat, play basketball, eat and then play again.

“That’s really what camps about. Playing,” Hollomon said. “We teach them stations, defense, rebounding, offense and lay-ups.”

The campers compete in three on three, one on one, hot shot and league games and are broken into two age groups said Hollomon. Grades four through seven are in one group while grades eight through 12 participate in another section of the camp.

“It’s so we don’t have a fourth grader playing against a twelfth grader,” said Hollomon.

This is the second year Sallee has run the girl’s camp and says the numbers are solid.

“We had 65 campers at this camp and 100 campers at the camp last weekend,” Sallee said.

Lauren Dailey, 23, a graduate assistant for the Women’s basketball program who played basketball for Eastern before graduating in 2004, agrees that the attendance numbers are solid and thinks the camps will only get bigger.

“Bigger schools have lots more kids,” Dailey said. “As program gets better, the camp will get bigger.”

Despite the fact that bigger schools may have bigger camps, the campers enjoy the basketball camps at Eastern.

“They’re all here to have fun,” Dailey said. “They leave with a good experience and it inspires them to keep playing.”

Jenna Collins from Sullivan, came to camp to improve her basketball skills. She had so much fun playing in the games that she plans on attending the camp again next year.

Erin Conner, 11, from Kentucky, found out about the camp from her cousin, Head women’s basketball coach Brady Sallee. “It’s a learning experience,” Conner said. “We learned better ball handling, defense, rebounding and lay ups.”

While Sallee feels the camps help the girls learn the fundamentals of basketball, he said the camps also teach them more than the correct way to shoot a basketball.

“Only three percent of high school basketball players go onto play college ball. Most of the girls here won’t play in college,” Sallee said. “But they can still learn lessons from these camps.”

Sallee spoke to the girls Monday afternoon on the importance of discipline not only on the court, but in academics and their every day life.

“At camp they learn life lessons. How to be a better player, person, daughter, or granddaughter,” said Sallee.