Wahluke baseball coaches host summer camp in July

MATTAWA — Wahluke High School will be hosting a baseball camp in July, in cooperation with the U.S. Baseball Academy as part of the USBA’s Summer Training Program.

“I wanted to bring something where all those younger kids could have an opportunity to come and get some high caliber training, extra development,” Wahluke baseball head coach Chet Bangs said. “So it was a lot of searching and trying to find a good program that I felt would match my mentality as well as trying to help to develop kids.”

The camp, which will be held from July 11-14 at the school, will seek to train players through drills and competitions.

Bangs, who is going into his fourth year as head coach of the Warriors, said that the camp will be instructed by the Wahluke coaching staff. The goal of the camp is to provide players with the opportunity to receive local instruction from the coaches at the school.

“I wanted to bring something back kind of to our region, essentially because the ones in Seattle have access to a lot of camps, and Spokane and so forth,” Bangs said. “But, it's kind of like, obviously in Mattawa there's not a whole lot [of camps]. People have to travel everywhere, down to Royal City, Othello and all those places.”

The days of the camp will be divided into groups of pitching and fielding so that each player can receive training in what best suits them. Bangs said that he wants the campers to do what’s best for them.

“We'll break them down, really, not everybody wants to be a pitcher. In the beginning of this session, each morning after they check in and we do our stretching we’ll break down to different groups; pitching and fielding. Then we will have some specialized training with the ones that want to pitch. We'll get a lot of the fielding in.”

The camp will also have a session dedicated to hitting each day, and will coincide with some of the other intricacies that go along with the sport.

“We'll go into the hitting aspect, base running, situational playing,” Bangs said. “A lot of great development.”

The coaching staff will also be taking recordings of campers doing drills to give “instant feedback” and share them with their parents, giving them a viewable showcase of what the campers have been working on at camp.

“So, we'll do some video recording of the ones that pitch, and field, and hit to give some instant feedback with the kids, and obviously the parents,” Bangs said. “I’m more than happy to share everything with the parents so they can see you know what they're learning, maybe they can help them along after the camp.”

Registration is still open for the camp, with an entry fee of $295. The cost includes daily instruction, a certificate and a shirt. Some of the other activities included in the camp are wiffle ball world series and a daily camper award, with prizes for the winners. Registration for the camp is done through the USBA’s website at https://usbaseballacademy.com/summer-baseball-camp-in-mattawa/.

Ian Bivona may be reached at ibivona@columbiabasinherald.com.