Strong HS teams in the middle of the country are looking for games and that's why Woodlands out of Texas will spend the weekend in Kansas City.

Woodlands, fresh off winning their own Come and Take It tournament, will face off with the Kansas City Jr. Blues on Saturday and St. Thomas Aquinas on Sunday. Woodlands has got to be thinking about HS Nationals, where they finished 4th, losing the semifinal by only four points and the 3rd-4th game by only four as well. Those tiny margins can be maddening and so the Texas team is making the return trip to face Kansas City while also adding in Aquinas for a two-game, two-day trip.

Come and Take It Crowns Eight Champions

For Aquinas, this will be their first runout and an important one. Kansas City got their first taste of competition last week with a win over Bixby.

New Head Coach Casey Cummings added in a couple of Liberty North players to round out their bench—under Brodie Orth, Liberty North promises to add some much-needed competition in the KC area.

A small number of KC players are finishing up winter sports and they likely will be ready to paly either this week or next. Last week Bixby and KC met at Drury University in Springfield, Mo. Drury Head Coach Bryan Bevel worked hard to get a venue for these two.

For KC, they got two tries from Vince Jacoby and 13 points from Kade Williams with a try and four conversions. Ian Scott also touched down as did Liberty North player Cam Kirkland. After starting off somewhat imprecisely, KC used their forwards to control the breakdowns and set up a nice platform for the backs.

All of this is early going. All of these teams are still testing the waters, but it's telling that they are doing so with highly-ranked opposition, rather than finding a guaranteed victory that just serves to make them feel good.