The Montgomery County boys basketball team made another trip to Kansas City this summer.

The Wildcats competed in the Midwest Basketball Showcase in June at Hy-Vee Arena. Even though MCHS didn’t get a win in the Midwest Basketball Showcase, players enjoyed making the two and a half hour trip out west to play against some of the best high school basketball teams in the region.

“They lost all four games, but they were competitive games,” said MCHS coach Scott Kroeger, who didn’t attend the showcase because he celebrated his anniversary weekend with his wife. “They got to see some really tough competition.”

The Wildcats lost to a team from Kentucky, two teams from Kansas and a team from Iowa at the Showcase. Teams from other states such as Nebraska, Arkansas and Oklahoma also participated in the event.

“Typically in the past, it was a camp for players who had potential to be Division I players,” Kroeger said. “They are extremely talented players. They were invited up there. It was kind of an individual camp. It was split into random teams. They would scrimmage against each other. Coaches weighed in after it occurred last year and decided it would be better to make it a camp where a whole team of the school that the kids goes to would get invited to the camp so they could see the kid play with his teammates and be in a comfortable system and see what they are capable of. So they switched it to a team camp.”

Juniors Clayton Parker, Tyler Erwin, Isaiah Thomas, Sean Rodgers, Tatum Wessel and Jay Rodgers and seniors Mason Leu, Cade Smith, Jacer Brower and Jake Stillwagon were among the Wildcat players this summer. Most of them played on an MCHS team that won 19 games and captured an Eastern Missouri Conference title last winter.

“We were looking to take advantage of our athleticism, our age and our experience,” Kroeger said. “We were trying to push the pressure on defense and push the basketball on offense, trying to play faster. We felt like, with our experience, we’re able to play faster and make good decisions. Last year, I felt like there were times where we had to slow down in order to make good decisions because we were young and hadn’t been in action very much. We really look to intensify that aspect.”

The Wildcats’ season begins on Nov. 17 with a home game against Fatima. Kroeger said he hopes his players will continue to work on their game for the next four months.

“This is the time in which kids can choose to separate themselves from others,” Kroeger said. “They can choose to get in the gym. We’ll try to open it as much as we can, but it’s really about the work that they seek out themselves. Since we really can’t have any more contact days with them, they really have to seek out opportunities to get better. So we’ll see how much they are willing to do that. We have a few guys who are already doing that, so we’ll see how many guys we can get on that same page.”

In late December 2022, MCHS made the trip to Kansas City to compete in the Twelve Days of Christmas Shootout for the first time. The team lost to Lafayette County 64-45. The Wildcats are scheduled to play in the shootout again on Dec. 29 to take on Hogan Prep Academy Charter of Kansas City.

“They really liked the trip (to the 2022 shootout) even though the game didn’t go super well last year,” Kroeger said. “We got some positive feedback from them from the summer trip as well. So we’re really looking forward to going out there and actually winning a game this winter in that arena since we’re 0-5 at this point.”

The Wildcats played a pair of St. Louis-area teams at home on June 28 – Lindbergh and Fort Zumwalt East. MCHS beat Lindbergh 37-36 and Fort Zumwalt East 30-22.

Against Lindbergh, the Wildcats played against senior Quinn Sutherland, who is 6-foot-10 and earned all-conference honors last year.

“He’s a really tough player,” Kroeger said. “I thought we did a good job on him. Even whenever we took Clayton out when he was on the court a couple of times, our guys really battled in there and really did a good job against them.”