Break out the pads, helmets and uniforms, it's jamboree time.
Friday night, Lee's Summit West hosted this annual high school football tradition where four teams come together to work out those last-minute kinks in what could be called a dress rehearsal before the curtain goes up on opening night in just one week. Grain Valley, Raytown South and Truman joined the Titans for the scrimmage.
Every coach will tell you the main goal is to come away from the jamboree with every player unscathed, and fortunately for each team, that goal was met.
"First thing were healthy," said Grain Valley head coach David Allie. "That's a big positive. I thought we played pretty well. Against Truman, a Class 5 school, I thought we moved the ball pretty well, and defensively we played we played well and got a lot of stops."
Which brings up and interesting point. All four schools made stellar plays on defensive. To bring up a baseball analogy where pitchers are ahead of the hitters early in the season, are the defenses a tick ahead of the offenses before the season gets underway?
"For us maybe a little bit more so," Raytown South head coach Nick Adkins said. "We're putting in new offense, and we have a new offensive coordinator, so we learning offensively as we put things in. Out defense is definitely ahead of us, and their flying around the ball and making some good plays and hopefully keep us in some ball games."
After a disappoint season last year, Truman's head coach Charlie Pugh was looking at Friday's jamboree as a measuring stick.
"There's a lot of room for improvement, but I wasn't disappointed at all," he said. "It gave us an opportunity to see the pace of the game. Overall I was really pleased with it and look to build off of it."
And finally, host Lee's Summit West, who is coming off of last season's heartbreaking postseason loss to Rockhurst was preparing for its first game out of the shoot against Park Hill.
"These are some good teams out there," West head coach Vinny Careswell said. "I thought Grain Valley looked great. Raytown South has speed, and Truman was huge. We had a few penalties and we have to be penalty free to be ready for Park Hill, and we have to get our special teams aligned because you don't get to practice your special teams in a jamboree, but that's something we need to hone up on and get going for next Friday."
