For years, the Butler Invitational was the first early-season test for high school boys' track athletes.

If a WPIAL school won the Butler Invitational team title it immediately became a contender for a WPIAL championship.

Seven years ago, the Butler folks added a girls' invitational the day after the boys' meet.

Tomorrow, the two Butler Invitationals will become one.

"What was happening was coaches were bringing their boys up here Friday and weren't getting out until 10 or 10:30 at night and then having to turn around and coming back the next morning," said Ron Harris, the girls' track coach at Butler High School. "That was tough on schools.

"And what has happened is that a lot of other places are now holding invitationals with F.A.T. [fully automatic timing] systems at the same time as ours and started to pull teams away. California University [of Pennsylvania] is having one the same day as our meet this year and there's one at Latrobe. So, we decided to put the boys and girls together this season."

It will be 45th year for the boys' portion of the Butler Invitational and the 8th year for the girls. The competition at Butler's Art Bernardi Stadium will start at 1 p.m. with field events and trials in running events. Finals in running events are expected to begin between 4:30 and 5 p.m. With two pole vault pits and plenty room for throwing events, Harris doesn't see any problems handling the large number of athletes.

As of Monday, Harris said 28 boys' teams and 23 girls' teams were registered to participate. Erie McDowell is the defending champion for boys and girls.

"Most of the power teams are going to be here," Harris said. "Mt. Lebanon, Baldwin, Penn Hills, West Mifflin, Pine-Richland are all coming, so the competition should again be outstanding."

And a number of smaller schools will send a couple of their better athletes to the Butler meet.

"Brentwood, which is a small school in the South Hills, is bringing a couple of individuals up," Harris added. "They have a very talented girls' 800 runner [Maggie Wissler] they want to go against good competition."

While the Tri-State Track Coaches Association championships held April 4 at West Mifflin is the first big meet of the season, the Butler Invitational is the jumping off point for the meat of the schedule.

The WPIAL team championships and qualifiers for the individual championships are less than three weeks away.

"After our meet, teams and individuals have a pretty good idea of where they stand," Harris said. "We're a good lead in for the team playoffs."

If things break right, the Butler boys' could be in the hunt for the invitational's team title. The Golden Tornado finished fourth in the WPIAL Class AAA team playoffs last year.

Butler has talented junior Logan Renwick who won the triple jump and was second in the 110-meter hurdles at the Tri-State Coaches championships and a talented group of distance runners.

Penn Hills is the favorite on the girls' side after winning the team title at the Tri-State Coaches championships. As always, Penn Hills has a number of gifted sprinters.

"I'd say some of the better competition will come in the boys' triple jump because of Logan and McDowell has a couple very good jumpers," Harris said. "The girls' high jump should also be good.

"On the track, the boys' 400 always seems to be a good race and I don't think that's going to change. If the weather cooperates, and it looks as if it's going to, it should make for a good evening."