Eight area school’s boys and girls track teams will try to punch their tickets to the 2023 State track and field meet when they compete tonight in Wayland. The Columbus Wildcats will attend tonight’s proceedings. The Wildcat boys won their first Southeast Iowa Superconference championship since 2002 last week at WACO, taking the north division. The ‘Cats did it with six event championships including Kaden Amigon in the 100 and 200, Triston Miller in the 110 hurdles and high jump, the 4×100 team of Jeff Hoback, Riley Kaalberg Miller and Amigon and the 4×800 with Tim Hills-Carrier, Tyler Humiston, Cole Storm and Damian Vergara. The Wildcats girls were seventh at the conference meet, led by Lily Coil’s second place finishes in the 100 and 400 hurdles.

Also last at conference, the Winfield-Mt. Union boys were runners-up, taking home six event titles. Kohlby Newsom won the 800, Gabriel Hemsworth the 400, Cam Buffington the long jump, the distance medley of Lane Genkinger, Abram Edwards, Ty Scorpil and Newsom were winners, so was the 4×4 with Sheaden Adams, Edwards, Scorpil and Newsom and the sprint med with Caleb Giese, Edwards, Buffington and Hemsworth. For the Lady Wolves at conference, they placed sixth as a team. Keetyn Townsley was the 100 hurdle champ and the shuttle hurdle team of Josie Nelson, Keyreanna Sharrar, Tessa Huston and Townsley were winners.

The WACO boys were third at conference on their home track. The Warriors had two conference championship events in the 4×200 of Braden Spain, Isaac Oswald and Mason and Clayton Miller and the shuttle hurdle with Oswald, Mason Miller, Louden Huisenga and Simeon Reichenbach. For the Warrior girls they placed eighth as a team with Zoey Dennler winning the Superconference title in the 400 hurdles.

The Lone Tree girls were runners-up with 125 points, scoring five Superconference event titles including Sophie Bell in the 400, Vivian Zaruba in the 800, the 4×100 team of Zaruba, Ava Christofferson, Riley Krueger and Rylee Shield, the 4×2 of Avery Morarie, Shield, Zaruba and Christofferson and the sprint med with Bell, Zaruba, Christofferson and Shield. For the Lion boys, they were sixth with the top finish a second place performance for the 4×200 of Emmett Burke, Tyce Alt, Ethan Bockelman and Drew Gauley.

The Highland girls were fourth at last week’s Superconference meet. Sarah Burton led the Huskies as the conference long jump champ. The Highland boys were paced by a seventh place finish for Jackson Schneider in the 110 hurdles.

The Hillcrest Academy girls were ninth at conference with Delaney Shaw runner-up in the 400, the Raven boys got a third place finish for Owen Scott in high jump.

Keota and Sigourney, KCII area reps from the South Iowa Cedar League will also be at WACO tonight. The Savages were sixth of 12 teams on the girls side of the SICL Championships. Josephine Moore was third in shot put and Addison Yates third in the 3000 for Sigourney. The Savages finished third in the sprint medley. The Sigourney boys were eighth with Troy Klett taking third in the 3200. Keota was 12th in both the boys and girls team standings. Olivia Lyle was ninth in the 400 and Gavin Sieren ninth in long jump.

Joining these schools today are Danville, Moulton-Udell, New London, Pekin, Iowa City Regina and Wapello. Each event champion automatically qualifies for next week’s state meet at Drake Stadium in Des Moines. The next 14 best performances in 1A in each event throughout the state also advance. Action starts with field events at 4p.m. and continues into the evening at Roth Field in Wayland.