By Amy Filippone, Dept. of Parks & Recreation
It’s time to start planning for summer basketball. The 2021 summer basketball league for boys and girls starts June 28 and ends July 29 with a break for the Fourth of July holiday. This league has become very popular with kids and parents. It was the idea of Colleen Maguire and Tara Ritting of the Moorestown Youth Basketball Club, who work closely with the Moorestown Recreation Department. They wanted to have a fun, relaxed way to keep kids playing — like a summer evening pickup game. It offered an opportunity for kids who don’t normally get to play together on teams and compete for five weeks in the summer without any pressure: no practices, no league standings and maybe some ice cream afterwards.
Games are played at the Maple Dawson courts and each team will play 8 games during the course of five weeks. Games are on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings beginning at 5:30 p.m. with the last game starting at 8:30 p.m. Younger grades start first. Teams are for boys in grades three to nine, and girls in grades three to eight. Team assignments will be emailed by June 21. Games are referred, and all levels are welcome.
Basketball clinics or “mini” four-day camps will be offered in two phases. The first is July 19 to July 22 (Monday through Thursday) with a rain day makeup on July 23. The second will be from Aug. 23 to Aug. 26 with a makeup day of Aug. 27. These are also broken into age groups but are co-ed. These one hour, action-packed clinics are for beginners and more experienced players. Skills will be developed and refined and good warm-up and stretching techniques will be taught. Grades two and three clinics are from 9 to 10 a.m. Grades four an five from 10 to 11 a.m. and grades six and seven from 11 a.m. to noon. Coach Ted Flick will lead the shooting and ball handling drills. Flick was a forward at the University of Pennsylvania and has more than 25 years of playing and coaching experience.
Additionally there will be a four-day camp from July 26 to July 29 that is longer, from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. for grades two to eight (all play at the same time but broken into age groups). This three-hour camp will be lead by Shawn Anstey who teaches at the Upper Elementary School. Antsey has been the head varsity basketball coach at Moorestown High School for nine years. He has the distinguished honor of taking the Quakers to the State Championship in 2019 and winning, which is something that hadn’t happened for 60 years. Antsey was a player and captain at Holy Cross High School and Rowan University and was also an assistant coach at Rutgers University — Camden.
Come out for some pick up games or learn from the talented and passionate coaches Moorestown Recreation is lucky to have.
The COVID-19 safety guidelines set forth by the New Jersey Department of Law and Public Safety will be followed. For full details and to register, visit www.moorestownrec.com.
