Tonight starts the girl’s basketball kickoff, with the Mid-Prairie Jamboree.

The Jamboree will host eight different teams, giving them all a chance to play against one other team for a half to play in a game like situation.

Mid-Prairie head coach Marc Pennington says it is a good way of seeing what you have out on the court.

“You’re always going to have butterflies that first night, but this will get rid of some of those on a Jamboree night, gives a chance to get stuff done against an opponent which is nice,” Pennington said.

Mid-prairie plays their Jamboree game against Highland.

The Golden-Hawks had a 17-6 record last year, and only had two seniors on the team. They bring back all of their leading scorers, with Malory McArtor who had 229 points on the year, Mariah Swartzentruber who had 201 and Erika Murphy who had 172.

The Juniors or younger who are returning have every top stat spot from first down to the fifth player in each category, except in defensive rebounds where Hannah Miller is in the five spot.

On Highland’s side they finished 12-11 last year, and lose five seniors, but only their leading scorer Breanna Hall was in their top five in stats. Kelesey Doreo comes back and brings her 187 points with her.

Pennington says tonight is all about seeing how the offense works against an actual defense.

“I just want to see that we are carrying over, into a game setting everything we’ve been working on in practice,” Pennington said. “We’ve spent a ton of time on the offensive end, set plays and different gadgets here and there, I kind of want to see that against someone else, you get kind of tired of going against the same people every time because you obviously know the plays, so it will be nice to see how we execute going against someone else.”

Mid-Prairie and Highland is scheduled to play their half tonight last at 7:45.