DesotoExplorer.com

The trip from De Soto to Hays is 150 miles longer than one to Central Heights.

That difference in distance hardly covers the difference the De Soto boys and girls basketball teams will encounter this weekend as they play in the season-opening Hays City Shootout.

The Wildcats will enter a new realm in the world of early-season tournaments when the boys and girls teams tip off Friday in Hays.

"I'm excited and I'm scared," Wildcat girls coach Dwight Spencer said. "It's going to be a fun trip for us. We know what were in for. We know it's going to be a great tournament for us."

It's the scary aspects of the whole thing that catch the eye first. Joining the Cats in Hays will be some of the best in the state.

The host Hays Larks hail from a Class 5A program, as does Newton and Great Bend. That's nothing compared to the 6A powerhouses to be in the house -- Manhattan and Garden City.

Riley County, a 3A school near Manhattan, will also compete, as will Kearney, Neb.

It's not just the size of De Soto's opponents, however. It's the quality.

Riley County may be the smallest school in attendance, but the Falcons girls team went 2-1 against the tourney field last year en route to a 21-3 overall record and a trip to the state tournament.

Of the 12 Kansas teams attending beside De Soto -- six boys and six girls -- four qualified for state.

Great Bend's boys won last year's tournament and finished the season 20-3. Newton's girls were 17-6 and Garden City's boys were 15-7 and went to state.

"The kids know they have to go out there and play well because we're playing schools three and four times our size," boys coach Jim Bonar said. "We have to go in there and play well or else we're going to get blown out."

Blow outs may be in order, thought both Cats teams could have drawn worse starting opponents.

Both the boys and the girls open against the hosts, neither of which were among the tournament's best teams last year. The Hays boys went 1-2 and finished fourth against much the same field, as part of a 12-8 season.

The girls team opened its 10-8 campaign with a 2-1 record in the tournament.

But what if? What if things get ugly?

The girls will play either Riley County or Newton in the tournament's second round regardless of how they fare in the first. Both teams are coming off trips to state.

The boys face a similar problem -- there's strong teams no matter which way they turn.

Considering the questions both teams are hoping to answer -- the boys look to rebound from a three-win season while the girls hope to replace the vast majority of their scoring for last season -- ugly is possible.

Disaster, however, is not, Bonar said, thanks to last year's Anderson County tournament the Wildcats are ditching in favor of the Hays trip.

"Last year was a disaster," Bonar said.

Indeed. De Soto lost its first two games of the year, one in a close contest against Tonganoxie and another by nine points to a meek Metro Academy squad.

The team's lone win came against Olathe Christian, a team that barely managed a .500 record against a schedule of similarly small religious schools from around the region.

"We started 1-2, but that one win last year would not be as good as a strong performance against one of the 5A or 6A schools," Bonar said.

The girls, meanwhile, went 2-1 to finish fifth in their tournament against the same field, only hosted at Central Heights. The Cats picked up wins against an overmatched Olathe Christian squad and Class 3A state-bound Wellsville.

Still, Spencer said fighting with the big dogs should do his team much more good lording over smaller schools ever did.

"I don't want to go up there, get pounded and get discouraged," he said. "This is by far a better tournament than the one at Central Heights. We've had one really good team to play against in those three games. This year we'll be playing three teams as good as that team was last year.

"The whole thing is to go out there, compete, learn and get better. If we win three, that's great. If we lose three, we can live with that if we work hard, compete every game and get better."

As for the prospects of disaster -- two or three runaway games -- that's not possible with the right approach.

"A lot of it has to do with coaching. If we go out there and get beat by 40 every game and every game I'm going in and ripping them and telling them how terrible they are, yeah, it will be a disaster,'" he said. "But if I go in and tell them hey, these are 5A, 6A schools -- these are good schools -- this is going to make us better."

The idea of getting out of the Central Heights/Anderson County tournament was actually born several years ago when Roy Hawley was still the athletic director. The backbone of the tournament was several Frontier League programs, the empty slots being filled by smaller schools from the Kansas City-metro area.

Some of the non-league teams were good -- Metro Academy knocked the De Soto girls to the consolation game each of the last two years -- but others were rarely competitive.

Even the advantage of previewing league opponents eventually disappeared as Central Heights, Wellsville and Osawatomie all left the Frontier League this summer.

"I said (to Hawley) 'Ya know what would be nice, even if we have to do some fundraising, is if could travel some place just go for a weekend tournament. It'd be a great experience for the kids and good experience for when they go to state down the road,'" Spencer said. "They came across Hays and Hays pays us a little -- it doesn't come close to covering our expenses -- but he asked if we should go and I said 'Let's try it!"