HOUSTON — Kalli Knott vaulted to a gold medal, highlighting the first day of competition for the defending champion Northwestern State women at the Southland Conference Outdoor Track & Field Championships Thursday on the campus of Rice University.
“I thought today was a very, very good day,” NSU head coach Mike Heimerman said. “I thought we executed just about as well as we could’ve. It was great to start things off with Kalli bringing home our first conference title the weekend and Payton (Ware) getting third, so we scored more points than we were expecting.”
Knott, a graduate student from Erie, Penn., started her trip to the gold at the 12-1.5 bar. One of just three competitors left, Knott calmly cleared the bar on the second attempt and the other two competitors missed on all three attempts to collect gold.
“I feel extremely blessed,” Knott said. “I transferred in this semester and I didn’t know what I was coming into and coming into a team that has other people continue to push me and share the podium with me is an amazing feeling.”
The grad student wasn’t alone from Northwestern on the podium, either. During the indoor championships, Natchitoches native Madison Brown took home the gold in her final collegiate meet and Peyten Ware grabbed the silver.
Thursday, Brown was in attendance as Ware found the podium again, tying for third place and earning a bronze.
“It is really awesome,” Ware said. “It’s been really fun vaulting with Madison and Annie (Broussard) and now Kalli. I wouldn’t be where I am today without any of them.”
She cleared 11-7.75, tying with Stephen F. Austin’s Kira Van Den Ham.
The multi events began on a high note for NSU.
On the women’s side, Raven-Symone Jarrett posted a strong day, finishing in the top five in all four events, including in the top two in three of them. She dominated the 100-meter hurdles, running a 13.76 to finish first to kick things off.
Overall, Jarrett is in second place after the first four events, trailing SFA’s Basia Mitchell by just 32 points. The multis conclude today.
“I can’t talk enough about Raven today with the six events that she did was just quite amazing in this heat,” Heimerman said. “It was a very, very good day on the women’s side.”
The women have scored 19.5 points, which is third, trailing SFA (23.5) and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (22). The pole vaulters combined for 15.5.
Joseph Yount threw197-11 in the javelin to finish fourth and earn the Demons’ five points, which ranks seventh early in the men’s standings.
In the sprints, Northwestern placed three in the finals in the women’s 200-meter dash — Maygan Shaw (23.53), Samari Finney (23.86) and Margaret Conteh (24.07) — who were first, third and fifth in the prelims, respectively.
On the men’s side, Elijah Rowe (21.14) finished fifth to reach the finals.
Shortly after her strong showing in the multis, Jarrett took a break for less than five minutes before running in the 400-meter hurdle prelims. She placed second with a 1:01.54. Silet Gray also earned a trip to finals with a personal-best time of 1:01.84 to finish fifth.
“I really love the effort and the team atmosphere today,” Heimerman said. “Our group does a really good job of supporting each other and they’re one big family, just a lot of brothers and sisters. It was very hot and so I was very proud on how they handled the heat and took care of each other and we are set up to live to fight another day Friday.”
Competition resumes at 2 p.m. today, wrapping up the multi events. The men’s shot put starts at 3 to start the field events, while the women’s 100-meter hurdles starts the track events start at 5:15.
The NSU women have won four of the past five Southland Conference championships and the last three overall, including the indoor title earlier this season with a 4×400 relay victory that clinched a third straight team indoor title.
The Lady Demons also are the reigning outdoor champs and will go for two in a row outside while NSU’s men aim to win their first SLC title indoors or outdoors since 2002.
Meet action today and Saturday can be viewed on ESPN+ and followed at NSUDemons.com.