Shooting hoops beats sitting home

RITZVILLE – Basketball coach Dustan Arlt said about 20 boys signed up for summer camp, comprised of small groups of athletes practicing at Gilson Gymnasium.

“At least 15 kids showed up every day, so that’s pretty positive,” Arlt said July 16, adding they were in the second week of camp when the state-wide mask mandate came out.

“We thought we would lose a couple kids, but they all showed up, so that’s good,” Arlt said.

By coaching two, one-hour long camps, Arlt was able to split the group in two, and divide those into five different groups of four to five athletes. Arlt said Gilson Gym has eight hoops, but by utilizing just six, it gave players the ability to “spread out” in recognition of social-distance programming.

“They can’t even share a ball, so we like to let them have their own hoop,” Arlt said. “We’re mostly just doing shooting drills. This is our eighth time meeting; our fourth week, and we haven’t been able to do any team drills or scrimmages. But it’s been pretty good, and it beats sitting at home.”

This is Arlt’s 12th year as head coach, with 17 years overall coaching basketball for the Broncos. He started out assisting his former high school coach, Dwight Pflugrath. At the age of 28, Arlt took over as head coach, when Pflugrath went to coach Brewster.