BATON ROUGE – After making the fifth and final stop on its tour of Texas in Commerce, Northwestern State finally gets to remain in state for the LSU Alumni Gold track and field meet on Saturday, with the Leon Johnson NSU Invitational home meet just a week away.

"We set up a very competitive schedule throughout the year, which is why we've been in Texas quite a bit," head coach Mike Heimerman said. "But it's going to be nice to stay in Louisiana for a change. The travel will be much easier on us, and we get to compete in a quality meet at LSU."
 
A weekend ago, NSU sent a handful of competitors to the East Texas Invitational, but nearly the full squad is expected to participate Saturday at the Bernie Moore Track Stadium.
 
"With most of the team taking Easter off, we have come back with our batteries recharged," Heimerman said. " And with only two meets left before (the) conference (meet), that break should prove to be good for us moving forward."
 
The Lady Demons will be missing junior standout De'Shalyn Jones due to a family wedding, but Heimerman expects others to step up while she is away.
 
"De'Shalyn's absence was one of the reasons we sent a few athletes to East Texas, because we wanted to see who could take her spot in Baton Rouge," Heimerman said. "We have quite a few young ladies that stepped up, but I was impressed with how Tamara Style opened up in the 400 last week, so expect to see her again at LSU."
 
NSU has 10 performances ranked in the top-50 nationally, all of which will be put to the test against a talented field at the Tigers' biggest annual home meet.
 
"I always expect my team to perform well, regardless of competition," Heimerman said. "But they probably will respond a little better to what this meet has to offer. "Obviously LSU is one of the best teams in the country, they are going to give us everything we want to compete against, and we are looking to do the same."
 
Contributing two of those top-50 marks is All-American Amir James with his efforts in the 100 and 200-meter dashes.
 
The junior from Missouri City, Texas, owns the 14^th ranked 100m time (10.20), while his 200m time of 20.56 is 17^th nationally.
 
His All-American partner, Micah Larkins, shares the 100-meter ranking of 14^th in the country with the 10.20 he posted at the Texas Relays.
 
The LSU Alumni Gold will feature 20 other teams from around the country, including Clemson and Texas.

Field events will start Saturday's action at 9:00 a.m. and end at 3:15.

The morning running events for Section B also start at 9:00 a.m. with its final event concluding at 12:05 p.m.

Section A's running events will kick off the afternoon at 1:15 p.m. and will end the meet at 4:25.
 
Live results for Saturday's action can be found at: http://results.deltatiming.com/lsu/tf/2017-lsu-alumni-gold
 
For updates on NSU competitors, follow @NSUDemonsTF on twitter.com