The Jefferson City Lady Jays and Helias Lady Crusaders will both take part in the Capital City Invitational which starts today at the 179 Soccer Park.
The six-team event starts with a pair of games at noon, including Helias taking on Lee's Summit West. Jefferson City will then face Springfield Catholic at 2 p.m. At 6 p.m., Jefferson City will meet Sedalia Sacred Heart, while Helias will take on Springfield Catholic.
Jefferson City (10-1-1, ranked No. 5 in Class 3) is looking to use the event to improve as the team heads into the final third of the season.
"We need to work on getting better," Lady Jays coach Eddie Horn said. "Hopefully we can transfer some of the things we've been working on in practice, especially in the final third of the field, into goals and feel better about our play down there."
Each team will then play a third game Saturday, with Jefferson City taking on Lee's Summit West at 11 a.m. Horn wants to use the busy two days as a chance to look at some reserves and junior varsity players.
"We want to make sure we have right players in the right spots, including people that can contribute from the JV," he said. "I want to let some people play for an extended period and see what they can do in a varsity game to see if they can help us down the stretch."
Helias will wrap up the event with a 9 a.m. contest Saturday against Rock Bridge.
In a change to the event, Helias (9-5, ranked No. 7 in Class 2) will be playing on its home field the next two days.
"Any time you get to play a tournament at home is nice," Helias coach Brad Dempsey said. "... And working with (Jefferson City) coach (Eddie) Horn and having him on the other side is awesome. We worked it out where we're going to play games on these two upper fields. It's going to be nice to be able to be up here (on Helias' home field) and have that atmosphere.
"We both played on the same day not long ago, where they were playing Rock Bridge and we were playing Hannibal, and it was a great atmosphere. Now we'll have that atmosphere all weekend - we've got two of the best teams in the state right next to each other."
Springfield Catholic and Sacred Heart will play at 9 a.m. Saturday.