The spotlight on southeast Iowa track and field shines tonight on the Mapleleaf Athletic Complex in Mount Pleasant where a pair of KCII area schools will send their boys and girls to compete at the annual Panther Co-Ed meet.

The Washington boys were last in action a week ago at Case Field for the Steve Roth Relays. As a team they were fifth in the A division with three championship events on the night including Micah Rees in the mile and Josh Anderson in the wheelchair 100 and 200s. Other top performances for Washington included Rees runner-up in the two-mile, third for the sprint medley relay, fourth for the distance medley and fifth for the 4×4, 4×8 and Alec Ulin in the 200.

This is the outdoor opener for the Demon girls who ran at the Dickinson Relays at Northern Iowa, the IATC Indoor State Championships at Iowa State and Wartburg College during the indoor portion of the season. Highlights for Washington from those events included at UNI, Jaedyn Moore 13th in the 200 and 24th in long jump, at Iowa State Iris Dahl fourth in the 1500, Moore fifth in the 60m dash and seventh in the 200, Leighton Messinger sixth in the 60m hurdles and Ryen Pepper 10th, and at Wartburg, the 4×200 team of Ada Kendall, Messenger, Eden Levetzow and Moore third, the 4×800 of Taylor Bartholomew, Alyvia Anderson, Isabella Lujan and Amelia Dahl ninth, Kendall sixth in the 200, Abigail Kleese seventh in the 400, Messinger seventh in high jump and Ellie Van Der Molen seventh in the 3000.

This will also be the first outdoor meet of the year for the Mid-Prairie boys and girls who wrapped up the indoor season last week in Dubuque at the River Valley Conference Championships. The Golden Hawk girls were team conference runners-up led by RVC champion Emma Lueck in long jump, runners-up Jovi Evans in the 55m and 200, and Danielle Hostetler in the 1500. Evans was third in the 400, Hostetler was fourth in the 800. Behla Schmidt was third in the 55m hurdles, Paige Safly was third in high jump, Myli Hershberger was fourth in high jump and Nora Pennington was fifth in long jump.

The Golden Hawk boys were sixth as a team with the Golden Hawk 4×800 team winning a conference title. Other top performances included Jayse Yoder second in the half mile, Emmett Swartzentruber runner-up in the mile, Burke Berry fourth in shot put and fourth for the sprint medley team.

The Demons and Hawks will be joined tonight by boys and girls teams from Davenport Assumption, Burlington, Fairfield, Fort Madison, Iowa City High, Keokuk, Mediapolis, Ottumwa, West Burlington and the home Panthers. Action starts at 4:30 and continues into the evening at the Mapleleaf Athletic Complex in Mount Pleasant.