It’s the same story every year. The team that makes the transition from aluminum bats to wood bats the easiest, usually wins the Al Ice Memorial Woodbat Classic.

Except Lawrence Raiders coach Carl Brooks doesn’t see it that way.

	Al Ice Memorial Woodbat ClassicWhen: Today through Sunday.Where: Free State High, Kansas University’s Hoglund Ballpark.Who: Lawrence Raiders, Arkansas City, Augusta, Blue Valley, Claremore (Okla.), Dodge City, Ponca City (Okla.) and Tulsa (Okla.).Defending champion: Tulsa.

Sure, the Raiders will need to produce at the plate, but Brooks thinks defense and overall fundamentals will be the biggest factors.

Pitching? Negated by the wood bats. Hitting? It’s a crapshoot. With wood bats, it’s almost better to play small ball.

“Teams that bunt the ball well, will do well,” Brooks said. “Any team that does the fundamentals well, will do well.

“There aren’t going to be very many runs scored, no matter who’s pitching. So it’s going to come down to whoever can play the best defense.”

The Raiders, 12-7 overall, went 2-2 in the Lawrence tournament last year, finishing fifth out of eight teams.

But Brooks says his team should be ready this time around, considering the weekend they had at the College World Series American Legion Tournament in Omaha, Neb. After losing their first two games, Lawrence won three straight, outscoring opponents 33-20 in that span, cranking out 44 hits in the process. If the Raiders score half that many runs, they could be hoisting the trophy for the first time since 1999.

“I hope so,” Brooks said. “We played pretty well all weekend. Even the games we lost, we played well.”

The Raiders will have to adjust quickly to the wooden bats, which don’t have the initial pop of the barrel that aluminum bats do. It’s an adjustment that players struggle with, like Lawrence did last year.

“It’s a very different game,” Brooks said. “If you hit the ball off the handle, the bat breaks and the ball dies. There are no cheap hits.

“We’re going to hit with wood starting Wednesday. I don’t even want them to practice with aluminum this week.”

Now in its 13th year, the Classic features seven of the eight teams from a year ago, including Kansas teams from Arkansas City, Dodge City, Blue Valley and Augusta. Three Oklahoma teams Tulsa, Claremore and Ponca City round out the field.

Tournament director Lee Ice, whose father the tournament is named after, says the quality of the teams involved makes it one of the area’s premier events. Plus, the added draw of using wooden bats attracts scouts, along with top-notch teams.

Tournament officials buy five to six dozen bats each year. At $35 a pop, it’s not the best way to make money 12 to 15 bats gets broken each year but Ice says giving the players chance to use wood bats is worth the cost.

“We were one of the first tournaments in the area to use the wood bats,” Ice said. “It’s something scouts enjoy seeing and, of course, it changes the game somewhat.”

And, with the tournament playing its final two days at Kansas University’s Hoglund Ballpark, the weekend’s games give the players a feel for a big-league atmosphere. Games at Free State High on Thursday and Friday are nice, but Ice says there’s nothing like the added amenities KU’s field offers.

Brooks expects Tulsa, the defending tournament champions, Arkansas City, the Kansas 5A champ last spring, and Augusta, a select team from Wichita that lost to Tulsa in last year’s championship game, to be the favorites.

Though it’s basically the same field, Brooks doesn’t expect the teams to be that similar.

“The personalities of the teams change every year,” Brooks said. “That’s the nature of legion baseball. The uniforms stay the same, but the players change.”