BIRMINGHAM, Alabama—After an impressive outing in their first meet of the season, the Northwestern State track and field teams are back in action for the Samford Invitational.
The meet for NSU is on Friday at the Birmingham CrossPlex.

The field events begin at 10 a.m. with the women's weight throw. The running events start at 11:40 a.m. with the women's 60-meter dash trials.

Among the schools participating with NSU are McNeese, New Orleans, UL Lafayette, Troy, Alabama, Tulane, UAB and the host school Samford.

It will provide nice competition and give the athletes an opportunity to compete where the Southland Conference Championships are held in February.

Last time the women's track and field team was in Birmingham, they raised the SLC Championship team trophy for the first time in program history. NSU finished second in the 4x400 relay to clinch the title. All four members of that relay team are back: Sanaria Butler, Vanessa Balde, Maygan Shaw and Sanaria Butler.

Heading back will give the newcomers a look at where they will compete at the conference championships.

"The newcomers will get to see the facility because we'll have at least 15-20 newcomers on the team who have never been to this facility," Heimerman said. "It is nice to have a little bit of familiarity with everything. The biggest thing is getting them on a 200-meter banked track since we don't get to work on it at all."

In the meet, the men earned a second-place finish, its best team indoor finish since it also finished second in 2003.

Despite many not competing in their specialty events in Baton Rouge, the teams posted a successful meet in the opener at the LSU Purple Tiger this past Friday.

Heimerman says the team will do more of their specialty events in Birmingham.

"We'll do a little more of the specialty events this weekend," he said. "A lot of these kids had not even been back a week and some of our international kids just got back to the U.S. that weekend, so we took it easy with some of the kids. We'll open them up this week and do a little bit more."

One of the athletes not playing in her specialty event was Tranasia Jones, a transfer from Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.

While her event is the 400-meter dash, Jones competed in the 600 and found herself in the record books, as her time of 1:38.03 is the second-best mark in program history. That only trails Janiel Moore's 1:37.71, set in 2020.

"We've had a lot of good 400-meter runners here in the last nine years and Tranasia is the only one to beat any of the NSU girls," Heimerman said. "She is a conference champion, edging out Maygan (Shaw) two years ago. She has come in and is getting used to the training group and she is going to have a great year."

Jones wasn't the only NSU athlete to have a terrific first meet of the season. In the high jump, sophomore Randy Kelly picked up right where he left off from his fantastic freshman campaign.

After collecting the silver medal in the outdoor conference championship this past May, Kelly leaped his way to the top spot in the high jump at the LSU Purple Tiger.

Kelly cleared 6-11.5, which is an indoor personal best and tied his overall best. The sophomore took the top spot over one of the top jumpers in the country, Southeastern Louisiana's Slavko Stevic, who also jumped 6-11.5, but Kelly claimed the win by clearing 6-11.5 on his second jump while Stevic needed a third jump to clear the height.

After the trip to Birmingham, the track and field teams have a weekend off before traveling to the northeast, competing in the Crimson Elite and Bruce Lehane Scarlet & White Invite on Feb. 2 and 3, respectively. The latter is in Boston, which is where the NCAA Indoor Championships are being held in March.