The Sulphur girls recently wrapped up their first summer under new head coach Chad Walker, as the Lady Dogs were busy looking to rebound from a 6-19 record in 2023-24.
Sulphur traveled to Blanchard, Pauls Valley and Ada for team camps, looking to build chemistry and get to know their new head coach.
Walker comes to Sulphur from Altus after one year, but brings 27 years of coaching experience with him.
He coached at Hubbard, TX before taking the Tahlequah girls job in 2009. He led the Tigers to a state tournament berth before leaving for Clinton in 2013.
Walker coached at Plainview following that until 2018, winning 75 games during that span.
He coached at Minco in 2022 before taking the Altus job.
This summer, the longtime head coach spoke about seeing one thing across all of his new players - a rise in confidence.
“I think the change in confidence is the biggest thing we improved on as a group,” he said. “We have a bunch of girls with little to no varsity experience.”
But the sheer number of games played this summer have helped with experience.
“I know they aren’t full games, but our group played roughly 20 games over the course of summer and I think that has helped a bunch,” Walker said.
Walker knows there will be more growth that needs to happen, as most of his players are still gaining their initial experience.
“Whoever I put on the floor, it’s going to be new to them,” he said. “So we have to keep working.”
There are some key individuals returning, including sophomores Jayden Lee and Haley Beesley.
“We have a couple of sophomores that have played well,” Walker said. “Jayden Lee has some experience and has been playing point guard for us. Hailey Beesley is very athletic and should play a big role for us.”
Lee averaged 3.6 points and 2.4 rebounds per game for the Lady Dogs last year, playing in 18 minutes a game across 20 games.
Beesley averaged two points and 2.6 rebounds per game in just eight minutes per contest, appearing in 18 games for Sulphur.
Walker specifically wants his team to put up a lot of shots over the summer and in the fall, which is something that obviously can help the group on the offensive end.
“We all have to work on shooting,” he said. “We also need to work on our ball handling and going left and using our left hand.”
“When school starts, we need our girls to take as close to 1,000 shots a day as we can get.”
Walker also spoke about his team getting stronger and utilizing the weight room in the offseason as a focus.
“We hope to get a lot of shots up and then go straight from the gym to the weight room,” he said. “We have got to get stronger.”
Walker and the Lady Dogs primarily played zone but the head coach hopes to mix it up this winter when games start.
“We spent most of the summer working on a 3-2 zone, one that we can half court trap out of and trap in corners out of,”he said. “The girls have some room to grow there. But we want to mix up our zone with some man, as well. We are going to spend a lot of time on the defensive end when the girls get on the court.”
Walker is excited to get his girls in the gym after softball season ends, where he plans to focus on defensive fundamentals to start.
“We will spend an hour or an hour and a half early on just focusing on fundamentals on the defensive end,” he said. “It has to start there for us. You have to have pride to be successful on defense and we are going to work to build some sustained success with effort there.”
But ultimately, Walker just wants his girls in the gym, working on their games.
“Our girls just need to be in the gym,” he said. “You can spend so much time shooting before people get there from other sports. And when a girl walks into the gym, you don’t have to show them what to do with the basketball. You don’t have to teach them that part of the game. They just pick up the ball and get going, which is what we need to do.”
