Plymouth's West Lutheran Hosts National Basketball Tournament

basketball players will not have to go west this year for tournament competition.

They compete annually in the Great Western Lutheran Shoot-Out Tournament, which their school will host for the first time this week, Dec. 8-10. The Warriors basketball teams had to travel out west the four previous years when they participated in the tourney. In addtion, Warriors' teams will be defending their tournament titles on their home floor.

"All the schools in the tournament are 'sister' Lutheran High Schools, which are all part of the Wisconsin Evengelical Lutheran Synod (WELS)," said West Lutheran athletic director Steve Jensen. "Many of the schools are in the midwest including three in Minnesota: West Lutheran (Plymouth), St. Croix Lutheran (West St. Paul) and Minnesota Valley Lutheran (New Ulm)."

"The schools in the West part of the country are spread out and started the tournament in 2000 to establish fellowship and competition among schools that have a common interest," Jensen said.

The tournament has normally taken place in Arizona or Seattle. Teams from Arizona, Nebraska,  Illinois, Washington and Wisconsin will make the trek to the first Great Western Lutheran tournament in the midwest. With teams coming in from all over, volunteers have stepped forward to put on the tournament ranging from concessions to hosting the teams.

"Since it is maybe a little more difficult to get teams to travel to the mid-west this time of the year, we are trying to make it a little easier," Jensen said.

He has 20 host families to host students from a couple of the teams and West Lutheran volunteers will provide two free meals daily for all the teams. Transportation in the metro has been provided for teams that need it, and that will include non-basketball ventures such as visitng the Mall of America. West Lutheran also did not have an entrance fee for the tournament.

Students from Martin Luther College in New Ulm and Bethany Lutheran College in Mankato will help with the tournament by providing live web casts for the games. Both schools are part of the same synod as the high schools.

Arizona Lutheran Academy, Evergreen Lutheran (Seatle area), Illinois Lutheran, Nebraska Lutheran, Northland Lutheran (Wausau, Wis.), and West Lutheran will all participate in the tournament. Both boys and girls teams from the respective schools will compete.

The Warriors boys basketball team has started the season 2-0. They went 20-8 last year and won a Section 4A Tournament game against PACT Charter before bowing out to St. Agnes. The Warriors also won the Great Western Lutheran Shoot-Out for a fourth-straight season.

The Warriors girls team also has a 2-0 start heading into the tournament. They enter this season after a 21-8 season last year, which ended against New Life Academy in the Section 4A Tournament. The Warriors also won the Great Western Lutheran Shoot-Out for the second time in three seasons.

The schedule for the tournament can be found here.