The track and field team will host Indiana State, Southern Illinois-Carbondale, Bradley, Millikin, Lincoln College and Kentucky Wesleyan at its final home meet of the regular indoor season.

On the eve of the Ohio Valley Conference Indoor Championship, the Panthers will have the chance to snag the top team spots in the EIU Friday Night Special just as they did last year. At the 2016 meet, the women placed first overall with 136 points, and the men (116) finished second.

The Panthers ended the meet with a combined 15 top-two finishes. The women picked up nine of those top finishes, leaving the men with six.

Running events seemed to be the women’s strong suit as they took home one first place finish in field events. Junior Brion Portis leaped 38’09.75” to beat out competitors from Southern Illinois and Indiana State.

The women took first in the 200- and 400-meter dashes, the mile run, the 400-meter hurdles and the 4×400-meter relay and second in the 200-meter dash, 3,000-meter run and the 400-meter hurdles.

However, the Panthers will be without two first-place finishers this time around. Alumna Briana Walker earned the top spot in the 200-meter dash with a time of 25.63 seconds, and Amina Jackson, who graduated last year, dominated the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 1 minute, 03.16 seconds.

Many of the men’s top performances came out of running events as well. The Panthers split their first- and second-place finishes evenly.

Alumni Calvin Edwards, Brock Ramos and Christian Matthiesen-Ilunga won’t be providing their high placing performances in the 200- and 400-meter dashes, mile run or the 60-meter dash, leaving the repeated climb to the top to senior Jamal Robinson. Robinson placed first in the 200-meter dash at 22.05 seconds, right above Edwards.

The Panthers are striding into this year’s Friday Night Special after a fairly successful run at the Grand Valley State Big Meet; both the men and women finished fourth.

Eastern will bring strong ammunition as the team has produced several successful performances this season and shattered over a dozen school records.

Senior thrower Bryn Buckwalter has done well in Eastern’s home meets this season. She placed first in both the shot put and weight throw at the John Craft Invite in mid-Jan. and threw a personal high and set a new school record in shot put at the EIU Early Bird at 57’11.25”.

Senior middle distance runner Dhiaa Dean will look to recapture another first-place finish in the 400-meter dash. Dean ran in 58.24 seconds in the 2016 meet, just 1.11 seconds slower than her most recent performance at the Grand Valley meet.

Junior Davion McManis earned his personal best long jump distance at the Indiana Relays this season where he leaped 23’04”.

Senior Riley McInerney has broken two school records, earned two OVC athlete of the week honors and took a first-place finish in both the 3,000-meter run and the mile. Most recently, McInerney participated in the distance medley relay in the first leg at the Meyo Invite where his relay team finished in 10:03.76 and took fifth.

Eastern should stack up well to its competition. However, distance runners should be on the lookout for Indiana State sophomore Brooke Moore.

Moore recently broke her second school record last Friday as she sliced Indiana State’s 3-kilometer record by 15 seconds. In early February, Moore obliterated the school’s mile record by seven seconds at 4:43.04.

Eastern’s fastest mile run this season came via senior Julie James who ran the race in 4:56.55. The Panthers’ fastest 3,000-meter time this season belongs to senior Ruth Garippo who ran it in 9:56.98 compared to Moore’s 9:35.60 time.

The Friday Night Special will begin Friday Feb. 17 at 2 p.m. for field events and 3 p.m. for track events in Lantz Arena.

Kaitlin Cordes can be reached at 581-2812 or krcordes@eiu.edu