Serving as the last chance to see a handful of top percussion and winds ensembles before they head to Dayton in early April, the Mid-East Percussion/Winds Power Regional will be one to follow, as several key storylines are likely to unfold.

Here’s what to watch for from this weekend’s event at BB&T Arena in Highland Heights, Kentucky.

Battling for position in Independent World

While Rhythm X (5:01 PM ET) is the only returning Top 10 PIW finisher at this weekend’s event, the majority of the World Class groups have plenty to prove at their last regional of the season.

First off, there’s Atlanta Quest (4:39 PM ET). Last year’s 14th-place finisher will be looking to position itself for a sixth-straight trip to PIW finals.

Aside from those two, the other three of this event’s World Class competitors weren’t involved in PIW at World Championships last year, but have all seen success early on this season.

As new World Class groups, INov8 (5:12 PM ET) and ConneXus (4:50 PM ET) went head-to-head at the Dayton regional in early February and were separated by less than a point. At that event, both finished within decent striking distance of Music City Mystique and Rhythm X.

At March 10’s Indianapolis regional, Veritas (5:23 PM ET) also got in the mix, earning a head-to-head victory over INov8 by 1.3 points, while finishing just less than two points behind Matrix, a perennial finalist.

While Rhythm X is obviously the event’s headliner, it’ll arguably be most interesting to see how INov8, ConneXus and Veritas fare as they look to build momentum into their World Championships debuts as World Class ensembles.

Scholastic World trio gets a rematch

Six weeks ago in Dayton, Walled Lake Central, Centerville and Lebanon—three familiar faces in PSW competition—got their first shot at one another. All with varying degrees of incomplete shows, it was Lebanon that came out victorious, 0.8 points ahead of Walled Lake Central and a surprising seven points ahead of Centerville.

The regional season now comes full circle for these groups; likely with far more fine-tuned productions, the three ensembles will get one more shot at one another before taking their talents to the World Championships stage.

Of these three programs, it was Lebanon (9th) and Centerville (12th) who earned finalist positions last year, with Walled Lake Central finishing on the outside looking in, at 20th. This weekend’s event is a prime opportunity for them to pick up steam in search of a return to PSW finals for the first time since 2016, when it took 11th.

Key showdown in Open Class Winds

Last year’s world champion in Independent Open Winds, Chromium Winds (10:15 AM ET) will be challenged for the first time at a WGI regional this season when it clashes with last year’s Independent A silver-medalist, Inertia Independent Winds (10:25 AM ET) at Northern Kentucky University.

In 2018, Chromium earned Open Class gold by nearly a full three points over the field of five finalists but has yet to face any WGI competition this season. The ensemble competed alone at the Indianapolis regional on March 2, earning a score of 69.550 after a penalty of 2.7 points.

Inertia, on the other hand, also competed alone in Open Class at the Dayton regional in early February, and earned an impressive opening score of 75.000. With that in mind, it’ll be interesting to see these two against one another with World Championships looming in a few weeks.