This post was updated April 6 at 8:05 p.m.
Divide and conquer.
A strategy, a mindset and a common approach well-expressed by the Bruins.
UCLA track and field split its team between the Battle on the Bayou in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and the Stanford Invite in Stanford, California, where the squad faced familiar competitors from programs that include USC, Arizona and UC Santa Barbara on Friday and Saturday.
UCLA Athletics has yet to provide interview availability with players at the time of publication.
Starting the interstate outing was graduate student pole vaulter Paige Sommers, who hit 4.30 meters and placed third behind Kansas athletes Madison Snody and Mason Meinershagen – both of whom posted 4.40-meter performances.
Sophomore jumper Valentina Fakrogha scored first in the women’s high jump with a 1.88-meter jump. The jumper also notched second place on the university’s top-10 outdoor event rankings, surpassing her 1.84-meter score from last year and tying with Bruin alumnus Sheena Gordon.
Alongside Fakrogha, freshman sprinter/hurdler Olivia Griffin and junior sprinter Gabriel Clement II also competed in Louisiana.
Griffin placed third in the women’s 400-meter hurdles with a personal best 58.70-second mark, 0.28 seconds behind Oklahoma’s Chloe Rodriguez. Clement also snatched third in the men’s 400-meter dash, clocking a personal-best 45.24-second outing, 0.12 seconds behind Texas’ Lawson Jacobs.
But the team did not stop there.
The women’s 4×100-meter relay – senior Naomi Johnson, redshirt senior Madison Fleming, sophomore Kayla McBride and junior Taylor Snaer – snatched a 44.02-second time to place fifth, narrowly beating Athletics Canada by 0.03 seconds.
And at Stanford, the Bruins broke records.
Sophomore distance runner Olivia Foody crossed the women’s 10,000-meter line in second place with a 33:20.31-second time, surpassing the previous UCLA record holder and 1982 alumnus Michele Bush on the program’s top-10 outdoor event rankings.
Following Foody, fellow distance runners senior Kaho Cichon and freshman Kaitlyn Arciaga championed the women’s 1500-meter run and the women’s 800-meter competition, respectively.
Cichon clocked a 4:24.17, scraping past New Mexico’s Kylie Feeney by 0.01 seconds to secure first. Arciaga posted a 2:05.38-second performance, besting BYU’s Anne Elise Packard by 1.34 seconds.
UCLA will head back to Westwood to host the Rafer Johnson/Jackie Joyner-Kersee Invitational on April 11 – its third and final home meet of the 2026 campaign.
Comments are closed.