Traditionally, the Jefferson City Jays like to use the Capital City Soccer Invitational as a measuring stick.
But that will be a little difficult, since this year's Invitational comes just five games into the season.
"We're only a fifth of the way through the season right now," Jays coach Eddie Horn said Thursday as Jefferson City prepared to host five other schools in the annual event at the 179 Soccer Park.
"Coming into the season, I thought it would be October before I thought we'd really know a lot about ourselves and I'm going to stand by that."
Jefferson City (3-2) is coming off a 1-0 win on the road Wednesday against Quincy (Ill.). The Blue Devils entered the week ranked No. 14 in the nation by TopDrawer Soccer.
That was Jefferson City's third straight shutout win after opening the season with a pair of losses.
"We just had too much inexperience and too many mistakes, but in the last three games we've started to find ourselves," Horn said. "The hope is we can build on that this weekend."
On the other side, the Helias Crusaders (3-7) are just hungry to dent the scoreboard.
"It's time to play," Helias coach Chuck Register said after Thursday night's 1-0 overtime loss to Fatima. "We're going to get three tough games to see if we can right the ship."
The Crusaders have been blanked in their past two games heading into today's 7 p.m. contest against Poplar Bluff.
"We're tired of coming up empty on our good shots," Register said. "I think we're hoping and praying the ball will go in. I'm convinced when we get that first one to go in, that will open the floodgates. But we need that first one."
The Crusaders have done deep into their bag of tricks in an attempt to break the scoring slump.
"We've gone physical, mental and spiritual," Register said. "I don't know what's left to do, we're trying everything."
The Jays, who will start the tournament at 5 p.m. against Joplin, are using the tournament as auditions for playing time the remainder of the season for the 18 players on the roster.
"Depth will come into play with three games," Horn said. "It's one thing to watch them in practice against their teammates every day. It's a whole different to see them in competition against somebody's varsity team.
"They will get their moments, it's up to them to play their way into more moments or out of more moments."
More than anything, the Jays are just happy to know they're going to get to play games.
"We need to play, there's no substitute for playing games," Horn said. "Hopefully we will be able to try a few things and see a lot of the players in game action.
"We're here to win the whole thing, but that's not the big thing. We want to get some things settled."
Other teams in the field are Raymore-Peculiar and Sedalia Smith-Cotton. Each team will play one game today and two more Saturday.