AMERICUS — Faces lit up and hearts raced when the Southland Academy girls basketball team took the basketball court for a camp it attended June 10-13 in Knoxville, Tenn.

Why?

“We got to meet Pat Summitt and hear her speak,” said rising senior Caroline Clark. “We got to watch some of her players practice and learn some new plays and drills.

“There’s banners all over the gym, and everyone’s like, ‘Oh my God.’ Just to see all those championship banners, you can tell they’re good. It was exciting.”

The Lady Raiders were in the home of the Tennessee Lady Volunteers, which just finished winning their second NCAA title in a row. They were there for a camp in which they played six games against schools from Pepperell, Nashville, Tenn., Chicago, Virginia, North Carolina and Kentucky. All told, 78 teams were in competition.

Southland coach Gina Cochran said the Lady Raiders’ biggest challenges were working on outside shooting and ball-handling.

“We told them last year when we lost out of the tournament that we’ve worked on the fundamentals and basics that it’s now time to apply it,” she said. “We were shooting the ball more from the outside with confidence, and our point guards were handling the ball, all the guards. We’re another year older, and they’re making better decisions. I was real pleased with the way things went.”

Southland didn’t lose anybody from last year’s team. With two seniors — Clark and Mollie McGowan — back, Cochran hopes the past two seasons of playing together will pay off in the long run.

The Lady Raiders won their first game against the University School of Nashville 39-30 before dropping the next five. Clark and Caitlin Reid had the opportunity to go against a 6-foot-6, 230-pound incoming freshman, and Clark said that challenge was tough, along with battling taller players.

“We didn’t do so good on offensive rebounds,” said Clark as a whole. “We just have to hustle more and work to get in position.”

Clark said the team learned a lot from playing better competition as well as Summitt.

“You’ve got to practice like you play,” said Clark of the one thing that she remembered most from Summitt. “Watching them practice, it was high tempo and game speed. She said you’re not going to get any better walking through.”

Southland is in a new region this year with Brookwood, Deerfield and Westfield. Calvary Christian is also in the region, but like Sherwood last year, it will play a non-region schedule with contests not counting toward the region record.