By Audrey Dodgen/Staff Writer

Rodney Haydon’s boys basketball squad fielded three teams in a summer league in Okarche before heading to Carl Albert and team camp at the University of Oklahoma.

El Reno won the Okarche league, but was 0-7 during the OU camp.

“The summer went OK,” Haydon said.

“We’re going to have to get a lot better.”

At OU, El Reno played six 6A schools and faced only one school from its class — Woodward.

“We played some of the best teams in Oklahoma — Norman, Norman North, Midwest City. Those teams are going to be right in it in 6A,” he said.

El Reno’s overtime loss to Woodward was the third time the two squads had played this summer.

El Reno won the first two meetings, one in triple overtime.

The high level of competition, Haydon said, should push his team to prepare for the season.

“As long as the kids understand what we’re trying to do, it will help. It’s really just going to depend on how seriously they take it and how hard they work at it,” he said.

The squad is still composed largely of young players. The team lost only one senior to graduation, but lost three starters at the semester break.

“We had some really young kids get some good experience in the second half of the season last year, but we’re still very young. There were times this summer when we were mixing it up and I was starting three juniors and two sophomores,” Haydon said.

The coaching staff — Brad Malam was moved from ninth-grade coach to assistant coach after Tim Ray’s departure — expects to have three seniors on next year’s squad.

Ben Mauldin, Will Stiles and Eric Palmer all saw increased playing time after the winter break.

“Those guys are going to be a huge part of what we do. We’re really going to look to them to be our leaders. There will be a lot on their shoulders,” Haydon said.

“The really good thing is that they are really great guys. They are the kind of a guys a coach wants his younger players looking up to.”