Huskies Close Out Big Ten Indoors

Saturday, February 28

Indianapolis, Ind.

8:30 AM

University of Washington

Big Ten Indoor Championships

Julia David-Smith, Chloe Thomas, and Mia Cochran together on the podium at Big Ten indoors

February 28, 2026 | Track & Field

Results

By: UW Athletic Communications

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – The Big Ten Indoor Track & Field Championships came to a close after three days at the Fall Creek Pavilion at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. The Husky women's team earned a fifth-place team finish for the second year in a row with a strong push late from their distance crew. The men added points in the 400-meters, the mile, and the pole vault to wind up 12th overall.

Thomas Leads Women's Push

The women scored big points on Saturday in two events, the 800-meters and 3,000-meters. In the 3k, the women had three of the top-seven finishers to add 13 points to the team score. Chloe Thomas led the way, taking the bronze medal in a time of 8:56.54. It was Thomas's second medal of the weekend after she led off the winning DMR on Friday.

Right behind Thomas in fourth-place was a hard-closing Julia David-Smith, in 8:57.68. Mia Cochran took seventh in 9:03.80 to add two more points.

The women's 800-meter final was by far the fastest in meet history, with the top five finishers all under the old meet record. UW had three in the final, and Chloe Foerster was attempting to defend her 2025 title, but after coming through the halfway point in sixth-place, she could only gain one place up into fifth despite running the third-fastest final lap. Foerster ran 2:02.90 for fifth, which was faster than her winning time from a year ago.

Freshman Chloe Symon was sixth and Jenica Swartz was seventh. Symon ran 2:04.79, and Swartz ran 2:04.97, as they scored their first career individual points for the Dawgs.

The women wound up with 54 points for fifth-place in the 18-team field.

Rhoads, Rhodes, and Milers Score for Men

The first scoring chance for the men today on the track was the mile, which had four Huskies in the field of 10 finalists. Tyler Bilyard, Thom Diamond and Reuben Reina each took turns at the front of the field as the race went out slow, then Reina made the most aggressive push, taking the lead and injecting a huge surge with three laps to go, but he was unable to hold off the pursuers, and wound up fifth overall in a time of 4:13.36.

Bilyard gained three spots over the final lap to take sixth overall in 4:13.62. Freshman Josiah Tostenson was ninth in 4:16.53, and Diamond was 10th after he was tripped and fell coming off the final turn on the last lap.

In the men's 400-meters final, junior Alex Rhodes earned himself another new indoor PR and took sixth-place overall in 46.18 seconds. That was just off his 46.15 time from Albuquerque earlier this season, but that mark came with a 0.11 add-on for altitude conversion, so 46.18 is now Rhodes' official best in the Husky recordbooks, ranking second all-time.

James Rhoads was looking to continue his pole vault roll against a field that included three of the top-six vaulters in the NCAA this season, with Rhoads leading the way. But after two clearances at 17-9 3/4 and 18-1 3/4, Rhoads came up short jumping at 18-5 1/2, the first time this season he hasn't made that height and then some. He settled for fourth-place today.

The men finished with 24 points overall, 12th out of the 15 teams.

Dawg Bites

The Dawgs got two big PR performances early in the day in the women's triple jump, as Rachel Bir added more than a foot to her indoor PR, going 41-2 1/2 for the No. 2 mark in school history. Ava Washburn also set a new PR of 40-6 1/4 to move up to No. 6 in school history.
Josephine Welin placed 10th in her first Big Ten mile final, running 4:44.00
Eli Gault-Crabb tied for 10th in the pole vault with a make of 16-8
Leland Lieberg and Teko Cates each cleared the first two bars in the high jump, but went out attempting 6-10 1/4. They finished off the podium with best marks of 6-8 1/4
Trevontay Smith was one spot out of the triple jump final, placing 10th at 49-6 1/4 and Roman Hutchinson was 12th at 48-2 3/4
Washington finished with the two Big Ten titles from Friday, Hana Moll in the pole vault and Chloe Thomas, Chloe Symon, Mia Cochran, and Chloe Foerster in the women's DMR.