Camdyn Nierman said he decided to attend the youth soccer camp at Trinity Lutheran High School last week because he wanted to get better at the sport before he gets to high school.

“Soccer is fast-paced, I’m good at it and it’s just fun. I usually play striker,” Nierman said.

He has been playing travel soccer with teams from Brownstown.

Trinity varsity soccer coaches Thom Hayes of the girls and Todd Jack of the boys were in charge of the camp.

There were two age groups, third grade and under and fourth through seventh grade. Hayes said he had 16 campers in his younger group, while Jack said there were eight boys in his age 3 through 8 group.

The fourth through seventh grade camp was coed with 10 in that group.

“We want to get (the younger group) moving around with the ball. You can’t really teach them strategy too much. I noticed in coaching girls, they like to play games, and if you make it a game that teaches a soccer skill, it’s a win for them and they actually learn something,” Hayes said. “Before we got the goals out, we played a game (tag) where one has the ball and one doesn’t and they try to keep the ball away from the other one.”

Emily Whitmore said this was the second year she attended the Trinity soccer camp.

She said she just wanted to improve her soccer skills.

“I like to dribble the ball, and I like defense,” she said.

Whitmore, a student at White Creek Lutheran School, said she also attended the basketball camp at the school.

Jack said with the older group, at the beginning, “We’ll get them all together and do a warmup, and then trade off drills. With this group, you add more of the competitiveness to the program. So rather than just learning basics, we build on the basics. We take everything that they should already be well-versed in and we add competition to that and a bit more skill and require a little bit more thought-provoking, creativeness to what they’re doing.”

Hayes said in working with the older group, “It’s still the same concept. The games will just be a little more like a game of soccer. They’re all having a good time.”

Jack said, “You’ve got to start with a lot of the basics in the younger group. With the age difference, you’ve got to keep things simple at the start and make things a little bit harder for the older kids in the drill but still keeping it the same stuff for everybody. The key to this age, I find, is making each drill have some sort of successful finish, so no matter what we’re doing, dribbling or passing, there is always a goal at the end to give them some sort of success.”

Members of the Cougars boys and girls varsity teams assisted with the camp.

“Even if it’s just by example of the campers seeing the high-schoolers out here, it never stops, it keeps going. These boys are willing to be out here and give up their time during their summers and have their camaraderie as well as give back to our next generation,” Jack said. “They know very well what kind of community we’re in. It’s a pretty small, close community, so it takes them putting the time in with the younger generation to show, ‘Hey, this is a cool place to be.’”

Hayes also said it was good to see the high school players helping.

“I think it’s fun for the kids because they like seeing the older kids interact, and they’re actually a big help and it’s just a lot of fun,” he said.