The lights will shine brightly at Roth Field in Wayland tonight for the Class 1A State Qualifying track and field meet. Eight teams from the KCII listening area will all try to earn bids to Drake Stadium and the state championships.

The Hillcrest Academy Ravens will be in action. The Raven girls were fifth at the Superconference championship meet in Wayland last week, led by SEISC championships for Rya Scott in the 100 and 200. For the Hillcrest boys it was a seventh place team finish with Owen Scott going for gold in long jump.

The Highland Huskies were sixth as a girls team and ninth in the boys standings at last week’s Superconference meet. Highlights included runner-up for Kamryn Fink in the 100 and the girls 4×1, while the boys 4×200 was fourth.

The Lone Tree track teams night at conference was highlighted by a championship for the Lady Lions. They scored 100 points, with event titles from Addison McCullough, Ava Christofferson, Rylee Shield and Vivian Zaruba in the 4×100, 4×200 and sprint medley. Shield won the 400 championship, Zaruba the 200, Christofferson the long jump and Hayden Yoder the discus. For the Lion boys, they were eighth with the top performance from Dom Garcia and the 4×200, both finishing third.

The Columbus Wildcat boys were kings of the north for the third straight year with 179 points. The ‘Cats were keyed by six conference champion events including Lamar Ceant in the 100, 200 and 110 hurdles, Ty Muniz in the 3200 and the 4×100 and shuttle hurdle. For the Columbus girls, it was a ninth place team finish with Isabelle Forbes second in shot put.

The Winfield-Mt. Union boys were fourth in the team standings with runner-up performances from Kohlby Newsom in the 400 and Jaxton Jones in the 400 hurdles. The Lady Wolves placed seventh with conference championships from Josie Nelson in the 100 hurdles and Kynlee Buffington in long jump.

For the WACO Warriors, it was a third place finish in the boys meet where Jude Dykstra won the 800 and mile, Louden Huisenga took high jump and the team of Dykstra, Huisenga, Gage Samo and Hayden Shelman won the distance medley. The Warrior girls were fourth with Bren Graber winning the 400 hurdles.

Sigourney and Keota from the South Iowa Cedar League will also be in Wayland tonight. The Sigourney boys were fifth at conference with Jayden Thompson winning shot put and discus. Ellie Yates led the Sigourney girls as runner-up in the 1500. For Keota, Olivia Lyle was seventh in the 100 and 200.

Those teams will be joined tonight by Danville, English Valleys, HLV, New London, Pekin and Wapello. All event champions auto-qualify for this year’s state meet with performance qualifiers determined from final results. Action starts tonight at 4:45p.m. At Roth Field in Wayland.