Local coach Justin Strong is putting together a summer All-Star basketball league with surrounding counties, and already has 15 kids on a Bainbridge team and a tournament hosted at the Bainbridge YMCA this weekend.

Strong’s team, made up of pre-teens and young teens, practices in the YMCA’s gym twice a week. They have scrimmages, run through shooting drills and are preparing for a summer schedule that isn’t nailed down yet, but is coming together week by week.

Strong said building good relationships with other travel teams will be the key to Bainbridge’s team succeeding.
“Right now, we are just trying to support different surrounding counties so that when we host our own here, they’ll come,” Strong said. “We’re trying to have something going at least every weekend.”

That starts this weekend, where 10 other teams are coming to the YMCA for a tournament. Teams from Quincy, Tallahassee and Moultrie will be in Bainbridge to compete.

“I know that there are a lot of talented kids here in Bainbridge that haven’t gotten looked at,” Strong said. “As of right now we have one team, we are just seeing how it goes. Hopefully it turns into something.”