Shot after shot rattled into the north basket of the South Junior High gymnasium on May 30.

Soon the number of shooters at the goal dwindled from 16 to just two. As the player in front of him chased down his ball, Luke Matthews sunk his shot, putting an end to the ultimate game of basketball survival Knockout.

The contest was a climactic end to the first day of the Cougar Basketball Camp’s 5th-7th-grade session, put on by South Junior High basketball coach Scott Petry.

Matthews, a sixth-grader, was up against some older and bigger competition, so the best part of his knockout victory was simple. “Beating the seventh graders,” he said.

Before the campers went home they were treated to some well-deserved frozen custard after completing two-and-a-half hours of drills that focused on proper shooting technique.

“That’s one of the reasons we do the smaller camp with a younger age group, because that’s really when you can affect their shot,” Petry said.

The campers got a taste of what it would be like to play for South Junior High as Petry had them do the same pre-game routine his team does. It included a passing and lay-up drill. However, the pre-game ritual the campers seemed to enjoy the most was the agilities, where coach Joe Thornburg led the team in stretches to prepare them for the camp.

Campers practice using their legs to elevate their shots during the Cougar Basketball Camp. The main emphasis of the camp was to improve shooting techniques.

At one point, Thornburg turned his body with outstretched arms and whichever way he turned, the campers had to shuffle in that direction. If Thornburg put his arms up, the campers would jump and finally he pointed downward towards the court, signaling the campers to dive – and they did in unison, signaling they were ready to move on to the shooting drills.

Petry split the group up to three or four players per goal and shooters were given one minute to make as many baskets as possible. To make things interesting, Petry promised a free Chipotle burrito to the camper who made the most shots for his or her age group, in each drill.

“The nice thing about it is, the numbers are smaller in the smaller group, so we can work more one-on-one with them,” said Petry, of the fifth-seventh-grade session, compared to the eighth-ninth-grade session, which had twice as many participants.

“But the biggest difference is, I think you get kids that are open more to suggestions at the lower ages.”

Petry ran the kids through a series of lay-up drills, using both their strong and weak hands, the final one being the Mikan drill created by former NBA great George Mikan to improve his footwork.

The campers had to shoot farther from the basket in the next two drills. The first was the cross-lane jumpers drill where the shooter had to run back and forth and shoot from outside the lane on each side of the basket. Then came the cross-lane bankers drill, which had the same premise in that shooters had to shoot from both sides of the lane, but had to try to make baskets by banking their shots off the backboard and into the basket.

After a shooting competition that rewarded the top shooter with a McDonald’s coupon, Petry split the campers up into two groups for a final competition before knockout. Each group put the skills they’d learned to use and shot from different spots around the basket over the course of a few rounds. When the final round came to an end, the team on the south end of the gym won 51-50.

All that was left standing between the campers and the completion of their first day of camp was the game of knockout, won by Matthews.

For the remainder of the camp, which ran through June 2, Petry said the coaches would continue to evaluate the players and expected the pace of the camps to increase each day as the campers became more aware of what was going on. Petry said the main format change in the camp from day one would be the game situations he would put the campers in with three-on-three, four-on-four and five-on-five scenarios. But, more than anything, the camp would focus on shooting.

“Every day we’ll do something that emphasizes shooting for the four days,” Petry said.

Barbie Yowell, whose son Ryan participated in the camp, said the camp was good for Ryan because he loved basketball and the camp helped him understand some of the concepts of the game that he didn’t fully comprehend.

Petry said one of the difficulties of the camp for younger players was teaching kids who had no basketball experience and were using the camp to gauge their interest in basketball.

“Some of the older kids will play AAU,” Petry said. “Some of the lower level kids, this may be the first time they’ve touched a basketball and may be the only time that they touch a basketball all summer long.”

Even if the campers find that basketball isn’t their sport at the end of the camp, they will have at least enjoyed some good food in addition to the coaching.

In addition to the frozen custard offered at the end of the first session and the Chipotle and McDonald’s coupons handed out to competition winners, at the end of camp the last three days, campers indulged in food provided by Yellow Sub, Pizza Shuttle and Chipotle.