There’s no denying that last week was a big week for the Panorama Panther track and field teams. The Lady Panthers stole the conference crown last Tuesday and provided a similar outcome at home Thursday meanwhile the boys showed improvement both meets.

As for this week, there’s no questioning the higher level of importance as both Panther squads transition from the conference meet to the state qualifying meet. The importance level isn’t the only thing that’s changing for both Panther squads, in fact as head coach Greg Thompson mentioned to Raccoon Valley Radio, there’s a big change in mentality ranging from the conference meet to the state qualifying meet Thursday.

“There’s definitely a different mentality. Going into conference you just try to score as many points as you can. Like Brianna Hoffman runs the 3000 (and) runs the 1500, but that’s not going to happen at state qualifying because at state qualifying we’re trying to focus on certain events that could be in that top two spots that get the automatic qualifying spots to go to the state meet. So team kinda takes a back seat at state qualifying, obviously we still want to score well and do well I mean we’ve won the last three district titles. That’s still in the back of our minds but that’s not our focus, team points are not the number one focus at the state qualifying meet versus at conference they are,” explained coach Thompson.

Coach Thompson and both his Panther squads will have just one more day to prep up but they don’t have to go far as they will be hosting the district 6 state qualifying meet tomorrow beginning at 4:00 pm