Fearless shooter

RATHDRUM – Steve Seymour didn’t come right out and say it in as many words, but the Lakeland High girls basketball coach knew his team had a lot of work ahead of it coming into the season.

Just three lettermen, including two starters, returned. He just had one senior on the roster. The core of his team was juniors. He liked the pieces of the puzzle, even if he knew it might take the whole season to find the best fit for the pieces.

What has made the task much easier and enjoyable is the presence of junior point guard Camille Reynolds.

Reynolds saw significant minutes as a freshman and moved into a starting position last year. She’s also grown 2 inches since her freshman year when she was 5-foot-2 and weighed less than 100 pounds.

The torch of leadership was passed to Reynolds from versatile guard Natalie Nichols, who was handed the leadership baton the year before from Kayla Steigemeier. Reynolds learned from both.

“They were legends at Lakeland. I owe them a lot,” Reynolds said.

The transition from follower to leader has been bumpy at times this season. Reynolds, a quick guard with NBA 3-point shooting range, can have a feisty personality on the court.

“She has a competitive nature,” Seymour said. “She’s been used to winning a lot of games the past two years and this year has been challenging in that regard. As a leader of the team she has to project a more positive attitude that the rest of the team has to follow. Overall she’s handled it well.”

Except the time she allowed her frustration to boil over in the locker room. She pounded her hands on lockers to go along with some screaming.

“It’s been a little bit of a shock this year,” Reynolds said. “I knew I’d have to be one of the leaders. I have a competitive nature in everything. It’s a good and bad quality of mine. Sometimes it can turn into arguments. I have the drive and desire to be the best. But sometimes it’s a bad quality of mine.”

Lakeland finished the regular season 5-14 overall and tied for fifth with Sandpoint at 3-9 in the combined 5A/4A Inland Empire League.

“Our record doesn’t reflect how good we are or how good we will be next year,” Reynolds said. “Most of us haven’t played together since junior high. We’ve had to learn to win as a team. At the beginning of the season it was like five individuals on the floor instead of a team.”

She enjoys games against the 5A schools, but she understands the school’s decision to drop out of the league next year.

“Playing the 5A teams makes us better,” she said. “I look forward to playing them. It makes us step up our game. I hope we get a chance to continue to play them because it makes us better.”

Reynolds’ game has blossomed. She will make more 3-pointers (24 through the regular season) before the season is over than any player Seymour has coached in 13 years, and she will easily have more in her career before she’s done next year.

She isn’t hesitant to launch the long-range shots. So much so that Seymour catches himself ready to scold Reynolds just before the ball finds the bottom of the net.

“She’s almost the perfect kind of shooter for a coach,” he explained. “She’s fearless. Every shot looks open to her. She’s hit some of the longest 3-point shots I’ve seen. In one game she took a shot that was farther than any I’ve seen and it was quote unquote out of the offense. I screamed at her that it was too far. Five minutes later she’s out there shooting from 25 feet away instead of 35 feet and she doesn’t hesitate to shoot. Coaches are sometimes afraid of taking the spirit out of a kid, but she’s not afraid of any shot. Some kids when they’re yelled at would stick their hands in their pockets and not shoot the rest of the game. But not Camille.”

She’s had to reel in her overall style this year.

“It has been a bit of a transition for her,” Seymour said. “Part of her carefree, reckless style as a freshman and sophomore was the result of the fact that’s what she needed to do to see minutes. Now we want her to pick and choose the times she’s carefree and reckless.”

Reynolds has averaged just under 12 points per game this season, one less than last year.

“It’s a different role for her,” Seymour said. “She hasn’t scored as many points, but she has to do more things. She has to get the ball up the floor and get the offense set.”

She’s also improved other areas of her game. Take rebounding, for example.

“She’s had as many as nine in a game this year,” Seymour said. “She couldn’t even spell rebound as a freshman, let alone do it.”

Reynolds, an honors student with a 3.8 grade-point average, is also a three-sport athlete. She’s been on varsity in soccer all three years and has been to state her first two seasons in track, winning medals as a sprinter on relays.

There’s no doubt that basketball is her favorite.

“I want to go on and play in college,” she said. “If I could play the rest of my life, I would.”

Reynolds appreciates Seymour.

“I was so scared of him as a freshman,” she said, smiling. “It was one of those things where I didn’t want to talk to him or look at him. I didn’t understand him. I thought he was this grumpy old man. He’s actually one of the smartest people I know.

“He’s really hard on me at times. But he knows I can handle it. He channels my competitiveness in the right way. He’s had a major influence on me. I have such a high respect level for him. When he yells, he’s trying to make me and the team better.”

All signs point to the fact that player and team have made big strides in that area this year.