The first-ever Gore Tournament will begin its three-day run Thursday at Gore Event Center with eight games all three days beginning at 10 a.m., with championship games slated for 7 p.m. (girls) and 8:30 p.m. (boys) on Saturday.

“I’m really excited about the eight schools we have in it,” Gore boys coach T.W. Estes said. “There’s a (Class) 4A school in Stigler all the way down to Class B in Braggs. We’re excited for Braggs to come over being as close as they are. Hulbert is traveling all the way here. Vian is right next door. That’s great to get local communities that we may not see that often. I’m really excited for the schools we have in it.”

“I’m excited,” Gore girls coach Staci Simeroth said about the girls’ field of teams in the tournament. “I think we’ll be pretty competitive. There are some tough teams in it, but I feel like we can hang in there and show ourselves proud and do our job.”

From an athletic director’s perspective, Estes is very excited for this new basketball tournament hitting the hardwood this week, but knows it will be hard work putting it on.

“With this one being our first one, we’re really excited with all the schools coming in,” he said. “We’ve got Salina down to Quinton coming, so there’s a wide geographical region of schools who don’t see each other. Both the boys’ and the girls’ side I think is very competitive. They’re all public schools. We’re excited to host this three-day tournament, but it’s going to be organized chaos (in getting it ran). There will be lots of basketball from 9:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.”

Furthermore, the tournament will allow patrons to see the quality facility Gore Event Center is.

“I feel like we’re going to bring a lot of schools in and a lot of different people, and show our facility,” Simeroth said. “As nice as it is, we want to show it off. We’re looking forward to it.”