Before Excelsior Springs entered this week’s dead period for interscholastic athletics, varsity soccer coach Brett McKenzie got his high school boys players together for some refresher work on their skills.

McKenzie ran team camp sessions for the Excelsior Springs boys July 27-30 on their home pitch. The refresher work went well, he said.

“I think, honestly, we have a pretty strong culture of getting out and getting after it, and they did a great job of coming in and working hard,” McKenzie said minutes after the final session. “And that’s the main thing I told them. I said, ‘We’re not looking for perfection. We’re going to have plenty of mistakes. We’re looking to get the intensity back and get comfortable playing at high speed again.’ It was a successful week.”

Tyler Wartner was among those who put in the work last week. After a slow beginning, he and his teammates showed improvement, he said.

“We were getting passes in,” Wartner said. “And even today, I could see at the start we were co…