Coupeville Sports

   Wolf gunner Mia Littlejohn attended a previous clinic and came away impressed. (John Fisken photo)

All your pertinent details.

Coupeville High School girls’ basketball coach David King is joining with King’s HS round-ball guru Dan Taylor to bring an innovative shooting clinic to CHS in mid-Nov.

All the important details can be found in the flier above, from cost to time and place.

The flier can be picked up in the CHS office, and for those with questions, David King can be reached at 360-320-0574 or dking@coupeville.k12.wa.us.

But why this clinic, you ask? Because it works.

Several Wolf players went to a similar clinic run by Taylor in Seattle and returned to Whidbey as converts.

“The clinic in August helped me realize the right way to shoot the ball,” said CHS senior Kailey Kellner.

The players started in small groups, broken down by grade levels and walked through the steps (fingers, offhand, rhythm, eyes, sway and turn) to form the acronym FOREST.

A different drill stood for each letter, and, after putting the six steps together, the players put them together to perform the correct shooting form.

“After we practiced and felt comfortable, we all did reps of the form in the spot on the court that we perform well at,” Kellner said. “There were many different elements that brought this form all together, from off the dribble to a simple step in to catch and release a money shot.

“Once I got the form down and it felt right, the form and everything followed after that,” she added. “You know when it’s going on when you release the shot from your fingertips once you get this shot locked in.”

Junior point guard Mia Littlejohn agrees.

“The shooting clinic was very helpful,” she said. “Not only did it help us with our form, but it helps us learn the drills that we needed to know to help improve it on and off the court.

For example, F for finger teaches the players to have their middle finger in the middle of the ball, something Littlejohn wasn’t doing previously.

“I normally put my middle finger on the hole that you would use to pump the ball up,” she said.

While Kyla Briscoe was sidelined with a volleyball injury during the August camp, she still attended, along with Kellner, Littlejohn, Tiffany Briscoe and Kalia Littlejohn, intent on picking up pointers even if she couldn’t be on the floor.

“From an outsiders look on this clinic, I saw major changes in all the girl’s shots!,” Kyla Briscoe said. “The form this clinic taught us was very similar to the way our coach has been teaching us.

“I’m very excited to join in on this clinic this time around, because a lot of girls shots have been consistent to the way our coach has been reinforcing upon us,” she added. “I think this clinic will be good for the Coupeville basketball program as a whole, because we aren’t as strong as shooters as we should be.”

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