By By Matthew Nascone
Relaxing by the pool and going to the beach have been the things to do for teenagers in the United States to do in the summer time. The Escambia County Blue Devils have other plans for the hot time of the year, they are playing basketball.
The "We Love to Run" camp took place earlier this month. During camp the ECHS basketball program reached out to the community and attempted to help teach the young people how to play the sport of basketball.
Last Saturday the summer workout continued for the boys and girls involved with the ECHS basketball program. They had a summer matchup against Wilcox High School.
Unfortunately for the Blue Devils and Lady Devils they were swept in their own gym, but neither boy's head coach Jerome Antone or girl's head coach Todd Reynolds talked about any worry.
"We know the summer is always a time to get better and work on what you don't do well," Reynolds said. "I was pleased with our offense, but we just couldn't seem to put it in the hole. But we will get there."
Antone chipped in with words of encouragement for his team.
"We will get there and I feel a lot of good things will happen for this team again this year," he said. "We saw some good things in that game and we have some good players and good athletes. And that is what you need because you can teach all the rest of the game, but athletes are hard to find."
The girls lost 57-50 and Courtney English led the way, scoring 12 points. Ashanti Jones scored 10 points, Ashley Kidd and Megan Hartley dropped in eight points and Jasmine Sanders added six points.
The final score for the varsity boys was 81-66 in favor of Wilcox and Frank Taylor led the Devils with 26 points and Kingston Craft added 23 points as the only other Devil to score in double figures.
Both Antone and Reynolds said they are ready to go to camp at the University of Alabama.
The boys go to camp Friday through Sunday and the girls will be in Tuscaloosa from June 26-28.
The girls will be holding a fundraiser at Winn-Dixie Friday from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m. to help pay for the trip to Alabama.
They will be bagging groceries for store customers.