Tanner Balazs is one of the members of a stellar senior class that will look to lead the Tigers Friday in their own Max Truex Invitational.

WARSAW – Make no mistake about it.

Winning their own Max Truex Invitational come Friday night is very important to the loaded Warsaw boys track team.

But the No. 16 Tigers also are focused first on making sure that their dominating streak in the Northern Lakes Conference is taken care of on Thursday night.

Warsaw, which has won 24 straight NLC meets, faces host Wawasee and Concord Thursday night in league action in Syracuse.

The deep and experienced Tigers will then turn right around Friday and look to win the 32nd running of the Max Truex for the third straight year.

“First and foremost, the NLC is our No. 1 priority this week,” said Warsaw coach Matt Thacker in a phone interview Monday night. “We want to make sure Thursday night is a success. We were in the same situation last year with a meet Thursday.

“Winning the Truex is always important because it’s our home invite. We will juggle a few things on Friday and use the quality depth that we have.”

Warsaw outscored Penn 122-105 a year ago to win the Truex title for the ninth time. The Tigers come into action this week after winning the Goshen Relays team title outright for the first time in program history on Saturday. Warsaw piled up 100 points to outpace runner-up Penn (86) for the Class A championship.

The field for the Max Truex will include Warsaw, Penn, Fairfield, Fort Wayne North Side, LaPorte, Hobart, Valparaiso and Fort Wayne Wayne.

“It’s a quality meet for us with good competition and quality teams like Penn and Fairfield and Valparaiso,” Thacker said.

Athletes can enter a total of four events Friday night. Each team can enter two athletes in each individual event and two teams in each relay. That will play to the strength of the Tigers who boast plenty of quality depth this year.

Warsaw had all kinds of standout performances Saturday at Goshen with the duo of seniors Seth Fouts and Gabe Furnivall leading the way.

Senior thrower Fouts set a school and relays record in winning the shot put.  Furnivall, who can do it all for the Tigers on the track, ran on three winning relay teams.

The stellar senior quartet of Furnivall, Mike Miller, Tanner Balazs and Tristan McClone won the 4 X 100 relay. The team of Furnivall, Miller, Ryan Goon and Chad Goon won the 4 X 200 and the foursome of Furnivall, Ryan Goon, Chad Goon and Landon Perry won the 4 X 400.

Action Friday night at the Tigers Athletic Complex begins with field events at 6 p.m. The 3,200 relay is at 6:30 p.m. with the final race of the night, the 1,600 relay, set for 9 p.m.

Admission is $5 per person.