SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — Basketball teams across the country are once again hitting the court for a tournament. But this time, it’s for the National Christian Homeschool Championships.

The week-long event kicked off on Sunday.

“The end goal is to provide an excellent tournament atmosphere for these homeschool teams to practice all year long and have an opportunity to do a national championship for the best teams in the country,” Zach Stargell said.

On Sunday, hundreds of homeschool basketball teams took to the court in Springfield to battle it out for the national title.

“We’ve got over 350 teams here traveling from all across the country. And today we’re doing the three-point tryouts,” Stargell said.

“We’re from northeast Houston, and we came all the way here to Springfield to be a part of the national basketball championships,” head coach John Puka said. “It’s a great experience. So we wanted to send our seniors out with an opportunity to do it again.”

Many work all year for this five-day event, giving the teams a chance to show off their skill.

“We’re homeschoolers, we don’t get a gym five days a week. So we have to work extra hard and a lot of time,” Puka said.

The tournament kicked off at the Baptist Bible College. But throughout the week, boys’ and girls’ teams will play in gyms all across Springfield.

“Wednesday, Thursday, Friday will also feature our all-American games for the individual players to recognize the kind of all-stars of the teams. And then our championships will be at Drury on Friday,” Stargell said.

Although teams are competing to get that championship title, the hundreds of people the tournament brings together are already a win.

“It’s just amazing to see this event, this schooling basketball community grow over the years and we’re just grateful that the organizers did such a good job,” Puka said.