HOUSTON—While Northwestern State has a storied history in the sprints, the women's pole vaulters have just as storied of a history in recent times.

Kalli Knott added to that, taking home the gold medal, highlighting the first day of competition for Northwestern State at the Southland Conference Championships on Thursday on the campus of Rice University.

"I thought today was a very, very good day," 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 getting third, so we scored more points than we were showing."

Knott, a graduate student from Erie, Pennsylvania, 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 State on the podium, either.

During the indoor championships, Madison Brown took home the gold and Peyten Ware grabbed the silver.

Thursday, Brown was in attendance as Ware found the podium again, tying for third place and earning the 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.

While the duo led the pole vaulters, the multis began the day on a high note.

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.

"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."

She wasn't the only Lady Demon who had a strong start to the multi events. Teammate Cherie Neal added multiple personal bests to place seventh after the first four events.

Bruce Boon did just as well on the men's side, placing in the top four in three of the five events Thursday, including winning the high jump, clearing 6-4.25.

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 and the other four came from Bernesha Knowles, who tossed a 166-09 to finish fifth.

Joseph Yount tossed a 197-11 in the men's javelin to finish fourth and earn the Demons' five points on day one, which ranks seventh.

In the sprints, Northwestern State 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 placed first, third and fifth in the prelims, respectively.

Dynia Lewis (24.56) finished 15^th and Tranasia Jones (24.66) came in 18^th.

On the men's side, Elijah Rowe (21.14) finished fifth to earn him a spot in the finals.

Desmond Duncan and Tavis Wilson each ran a 21.44 to finish 13^th and 14^th, respectively. Mikkel Johansson came in 17^th, running a 21.51.

Shortly after her strong showing in the multis, Jarrett took a break for less than five minutes before running in the 400-meter hurdles.

Not only did she run the hurdles, 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.

"It was really tough to do the hurdles right after the multis," Jarrett said. "I had to have a lot of mental toughness when it came to today, especially with the heat, in between every event. But I have a very supportive team and a great coach who believes in me and if he believes in me, I believe in myself and there is nothing that I can't do."

Kahliyah Anderson nearly reached the finals as well, placing ninth with a time of 1:03.94.

On the men's side, Robert Norton (55.40) came in 13^th in the men's 400 hurdles.

In distance running, Korbin Shumate (4:12.02) finished 27^th in the men's 1500-meter run.

"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 on day two."

Northwestern State returns to action at 2 p.m. on Friday, wrapping up the multi events. The men's shot put starts at 3 p.m. to start the field events, while the women's 100-meter hurdles starts the track events start at 5:15 p.m.