University of California, Los Angeles, Athletics
UCLA
Indoor Big Ten Championships
UCLA Track & Field Finishes Up at 2026 Big Ten Indoors
February 28, 2026 | Track & Field
INDIANAPOLIS โ Sprinters Taylor Snaer and Yanla Ndjip-Nyemeck both earned silver medals on Saturday to highlight the UCLA track & field team's third and final day at the 2026 Big Ten Indoor Championships.
Overall, the Bruins had four medalists and 12 scoring performances on Saturday. That brought the program's three-day total to six medalists and 18 scorers.
In the team standings, UCLA finished sixth out of 18 teams on the women's side with 49.5 points. The Bruin men placed 15th with a total of 21 points.
Besides Snaer and Ndjip-Nyemeck, senior sprinter Naomi Johnson figured in UCLA's other two medals on Saturday, as she placed third in the 400m and then was part of the Bruins' bronze-winning 4x400 relay squad at the end of the meet.
Johnson's bronze in the women's 400m marked UCLA's first medal and first scoring performance of the day. After setting a PB and the No. 2 time in school history with a 52.22 in prelims on Friday, Johnson followed up with a 52.29 on Saturday morning to take third place. It was Johnson's first-career individual Big Ten medal after earning four Big Ten/Pac-12 medals on past UCLA relay squads. Ava Simms also scored for UCLA with a sixth-place time of 53.19 โ the Bruins' nine points were their second-most in any event all weekend.
UCLA's highest-scoring event of the entire meet was the women's 60m hurdles, as Ndjip-Nyemeck and Celeste Polzonetti both finished top-five. Ndjip-Nyemeck matched her second-best time of the year at 8.00 to secure the silver medal and earn her fourth-career Big Ten medal, while Polzonetti ran 8.21 to land a top-five finish at a Big Ten meet for the second consecutive time after her performance in the 100mH at the 2025 Outdoor Big Ten Championships.
Snaer followed with a big performance in the women's 200m, winning the opening heat and ending up in second place with a time of 23.12. It was her fourth-career Big Ten medal (she later added a fifth) and represented her highest-ever individual finish at a B1G meet.
UCLA earned its final medal with a 3:30.93 that went for third place in the women's 4x400. It was the second-fastest time of the year for the quartet of Simms, Snaer, Kayla McBride, and Johnson.
Besides the aforementioned performances, the Bruins had six other scoring student-athletes.
Of those, standout efforts came courtesy of pole vaulter Eitan Goore and distance runner Everett Capelle.
Goore โ one of the first Bruins in action on Saturday โ recorded a season-best mark of 5.43m (17-9.75) to lead a trio of UCLA entries and place sixth overall in that event. It was the highest clearance, by a decent margin, of any Bruin to date this season.
Meanwhile, Capelle won the morning section of the men's 3000m, and ultimately placed sixth overall with a personal-best time of 8:03.13.
Junior sprinter Otto Laing also scratched out a sixth-place finish for the Bruins after posting a time of 7.99 in the men's 60m hurdles. It was his eighth time in as many tries this season breaking the 8-second mark in that event.
UCLA also saw eighth-place results from Gabriel Clement II in the men's 400m (46.79), Marie Warneke in the women's 800m (2:08.21), and Nicolas Alexis in the men's triple jump (15.38m / 50-5.50, an indoor PB).
Among non-scoring performances, notable outings came courtesy of Derek Smith, who set a PR in the shot put with a mark of 17.54m (57-6.50), and Olivia Foody, who notched a PB in the 3000m at 9:22.81 and made her debut at No. 4 on UCLA's all-time indoor top-10 list.
The Bruins return to action next weekend with their first outdoor meet of the year, the Beach Opener at Long Beach State from Mar. 6-7. UCLA wraps up its indoor season with the 2026 NCAA Indoor Championships on Mar. 13-14 in Fayetteville, Ark.
Players Mentioned
