BATON ROUGE—Fresh off an impressive performance in California, the Northwestern State track and field teams travel a bit closer to home for the next meet.

The teams make a trip to the state's capital city for the LSU Alumni Gold, the second-to-last scheduled meet prior to the Southland Conference Championships.

The meet begins with the women's hammer throw at 10 a.m. The track events start at 12:30 p.m. with the women's 4x100 relay.

There are going to be 21 schools participating at the meet, including Vanderbilt, Memphis, homestanding LSU and fellow Southland schools McNeese, New Orleans, Nicholls and Southeastern Louisiana.

"We're hopefully going to stay dry," head coach Mike Heimerman said. "There's a lot of rain in the forecast in Baton Rouge. With Mother Nature, you'll never know until the day of. Hopefully we can go down there and run fast. It's a great place to run. It's not a place known for throwing, but they've had some men and women throw very far this year.

"We're looking forward to going down there and getting in some competition and hopefully improve on some marks and staying dry."

NSU is coming off strong meets in California, led by another school record set by the men's 4x400 relay team, which ran a blistering 3:04.45, which is in the top 15 marks in the entire country.

In last year's LSU Alumni Gold, the men's 4x400 relay ran a then-school record 3:06.16, a record that had stood since 2003.

"Our chemistry in the 4x4 is so good," Charlie Bartholomew said. "We all have the same mindset, we all want to do great and do the right things, so we all just came together as one. We all just focus on the things we need to focus on, no distractions."

Tarajh Hudson, a graduate student from The Bahamas, is coming off being named the conference male field athlete of the week after tossing a 175-1 in the men's discus at the Bryan Clay Invitational to win the event. He already leads the Southland in the event with a  181-1 at the Leon Johnson NSU Invitational.

Coming off perhaps her best career performance, senior sprinter/hurdler Silet Gray is aiming to continue a strong season.

She ran a 59.31 in the 400-meter dash, which is not only a personal best for her, but also now leads the Southland. After winning the silver medal in the event at the 2025 outdoor conference meet, her goal is to do one better and take home the gold but is not trying to put too much pressure on herself.

"I am not trying to put any pressure on myself," Gray said. "I am mostly just going out there and having fun and executing. The moment you start putting pressure on yourself and starting thinking of everything around you, you lose focus on the main goal. I just go out there and try to be better every time."

In addition to the trip to California, NSU also had a terrific performance at the Jim Mize Invitational, where one of the biggest standouts from the meet was Thea Ring, who recorded three personal bests.

Ring began her impressive day in the shot put with a toss of 38-7, defeating her previous outdoor best by more than two feet.

She then followed that up with a run of 14.36 in the 100-meter hurdles before ending it with a 1:01.62 in the 400-meter hurdles to win that event.

"She is getting better and better," Heimerman said. "She ran a really strong 400 hurdles. What is impressive about that is she ran from lane one and that is a tight lane to run that in. If she was in almost any other lane, she would have run faster. That was a huge confidence builder since she's only run that race like two or three times. The more she runs that race, the more she'll get better at it."

Women's javelin thrower Mikayla Mondello also posted a personal-best with a toss of 134-11 to win the event at Louisiana Tech.

Anisha Gibbons (163-2) did the same at the Mt. San Antonio College Relays, as her throw now leads the Southland.

Following the meet, NSU heads to Texas A&M for the Alumni Muster, a two-day event starting May 1, the final tune-up prior to the conference championships at Stephen F. Austin, which start May 14.