Women Win Three Titles In Epic Big Ten Day One

Friday, May 15

Lincoln, Neb.

8:00 AM

University of Washington

Big Ten Outdoor Championships

May 15, 2026 | Track & Field

By: UW Athletic Communications

Big Ten Outdoor Championships
Friday-Sunday, May 15-17
Lincoln, Neb. | Nebraska Outdoor Track

Championship Home Page | Live Results
Day Two Stream | Day Three Stream (Day Three TV Broadcast at 10:30am: Big Ten Network)

LINCOLN, Neb. – Hana Moll, Ashley Schroeder, and Chloe Thomas all captured Big Ten Outdoor Track & Field titles in a remarkable day one for the Husky women's team today at Nebraska Outdoor Track. Moll broke her own NCAA Record to win the pole vault, Schroeder was a surprise winner in the javelin, and Thomas dominated the late stages of the 10,000-meters.

In just those three events—the pole vault, javelin, and 10k—the Huskies piled up sixty team points, as they had three scorers in each event. UW went 1-2-4 in the pole vault, 1-4-5 in the javelin, and 1-3-7 in the 10k to nearly match their entire 2025 point total with just four of the 21 total events completed. Washington will not continue to average 15 points per event over the next two days, but will have many more opportunities to score and build upon the sensational start.

Already with three individual titles, the Husky women have matched the 2009 squad for most individual outdoor conference wins. The 2009 team took three Pac-12 titles, all in distance running events.

The Husky men's team ended day one at Big Tens with its first nine team points of the day, as only three of 21 events finished up on the men's side. Evan Jenkins took runner-up honors in the men's 10,000-meters as the defending champion, and Tyrone Gorze finished eighth to add one point.

Pole Vault U

As expected, Hana Moll flew to unmatched heights to win another Big Ten title as one of the biggest favorites in the meet. But twin sister Amanda Moll was the one challenging her once again, as Amanda had her best series of 2026 to date, and made it another Moll twin 1-2 sweep.

The Twins Win B1G Again!!

?? Hana Moll adds another inch to the NCAA Outdoor Record with a 15-10 make

?? Amanda Moll clears a season-best, tying for No. 2 in the NCAA this season at 15-2.25#PoleVaultU scores 24 B1G points with the 5 from Veronica in fourth. pic.twitter.com/R9YTz63dsQ
— Washington Track & Field and Cross Country (@UWTrack) May 15, 2026

Amanda had a season-best coming into the meet of 14-3 1/4, but today she made 15-2 1/4 which ties for the No. 2 mark in the NCAA this outdoor season behind only Hana.

Hana did not enter the competition until more than two hours into things, when she opened up at 14-6 1/4. She had one miss but then cleared on her second. Amanda held the lead with her 15-2 1/4 clearance, with Hana passing, then Hana took the lead with a first-attempt make at 15-6 1/4, where Amanda was close but bowed out.

Hana then took the bar to 15-10, one inch higher than her current NCAA Outdoor Record. She flew over on a first attempt without any contact with the bar to break the record once again. Moll then had a great attempt on her last jump at 16-1 3/4, but the bar wouldn't stay.

"Every meet is a different battle, so this one was definitely a waiting game," Hana Moll said. "It was like three hours until I got a chance to attempt that (15-10) bar. Every chance I get to jump a high bar I'm grateful for, and every chance I'm able to conquer those obstacles to get to them."

ANOTHER @NCAA RECORD FOR HANA MOLL ??

?? B1G+ #B1GTF x @UWTrack pic.twitter.com/0BK6DZxFMa
— Big Ten Conference (@bigten) May 15, 2026

Joining the Molls high up on the podium was freshman Veronica Vacca. Vacca was the Big Ten Indoor runner-up, and she took fourth-place today, getting an outdoor season's-best of 14-6 1/4 to move to No. 5 in school history.

Sara Borton had an outdoor season's-best of 13-10 1/2 to take 10th, and Avril Wilson had a season-best at Big Tens for the second year in a row. She made 13-6 1/2 today but would finish just off the podium in 12th.

Also Javelin U

Not long after the phenomenal Husky effort in the pole vault, UW put three in the top-five in the very next field event to finish, the women's javelin.

Ashley Schroeder and Saydi Orange both opened the season with big PRs and had been extremely consistent, coming in ranked fourth and fifth, respectively, in the field. Schroeder sat in third-place after three rounds with a best of 165-0, but in the fourth round, she shot into the lead with the best throw of her career, going 179-6 to break her own School Record by four feet.

Schroeder did not improve with her final two marks, and had to wait out one close call on the final throw of the competition, when Nebraska's Jana Lowka got within two feet at 177-4, but once that measurement popped up, Schroeder had claimed her first conference crown.

Ashley Schroeder breaks her own ???????????? ???????????? in round four of the javelin!

?? 179-6 and she is into the lead!#GoHuskies // @BigTenPlus pic.twitter.com/CXGo2ZfWJg
— Washington Track & Field and Cross Country (@UWTrack) May 15, 2026

Orange was in ninth-place in round five, when she connected on a big throw of 169-5 that jumped her up into fourth. Meanwhile, Leonie Troeger had started from the lower-seeded first flight but reached the final with a throw of 156-7. In the fifth round, Troeger had her best throw in her two years as a Husky, going 166-1 to move up to fifth-place, where she would finish. That moves her to No. 7 in Husky history.

"I did pretty well I think," said Schroeder. "I got my arm back at the end which is what I was trying to do and got over the left side. I just want to replicate it for regionals and onward. (The goal) was to throw it as far as I can and I think I did that today."

First-place from Schroeder, fourth from Orange, and fifth from Troeger gave the team another 19 points. Schroeder's win was also the first UW women's conference title in any throwing event since Seselia Thomas won the MPSF indoor shot put in 2000, and the first outdoors since Aretha Hill won the Pac-10 discus in 1998. Helena Uusitalo was the last UW woman to win a conference javelin title, winning the 1987 Pac-10.

10k U, Too

At the Stanford Invitational in early April, Chloe Thomas edged out Izzi Batt-Doyle's School Record in the 10,000-meters by one second. Today, Thomas became the first UW woman since Batt-Doyle in 2019 to win a conference 10k title, as she pulled away over the final few laps to collect Washington's third championship of the day.

Chloe Thomas claims the 10,000m title at the B1G Outdoor Track and Field Championships ?? pic.twitter.com/eRuHc28K7e
— Washington on BTN (@WashingtonOnBTN) May 16, 2026

The Uconn transfer and Canadian World Cross Country Championships competitor, Thomas outlasted an ever-dwindling lead pack that saw runners struggling through a hot and humid midwestern night. With a mile to go it was down to Thomas and Ali Weimer of Minnesota, with Thomas setting the pace in front. After a 79-second lap, Thomas ratcheted the pace to 77-seconds, then 76 on the next lap, then 75-seconds with two to go, and her fastest lap of the race was lap 24, as she threw in a 74.5-second lap, and then closed out with another 75 to gap Weimer by eight seconds when it was all said and done.

Thomas came through in 32:59.51 for the victory and threw up her dubs while catching her breath. She then turned around to watch Abby DeVeau rolling to an incredible third-place finish in the first 10,000-meter race of her career. DeVeau had worked her way up late, picking runners off one by one, and finished in 33:18.23, the 10th-fastest time in school history in very tough conditions.

Two more points in the 10k came from Maeve Stiles, who grabbed seventh-place in 34:00.45, as UW had three scorers in a single event for the third time on the day.

Jenkins Takes Silver

A year ago, Evan Jenkins used a final surge to win a classic photo finish at the end of the Big Ten 10k. In his title defense tonight, he was making a powerful late kick to try and produce a sequel, but he wound up just a split second short and settled for the silver medal.

Jenkins couldn't quite track down Oregon's Luke Tewalt, who won in 29:49.24, with Jenkins less than a second behind in 29:49.83. Both Tewalt and Jenkins closed with 55-second final laps.

Tyrone Gorze collected an eighth-place finish in 29:56.32. Parker Mong worked hard to aid his teammates late in the race by taking the lead and holding a strong pace, and he finished 11th overall in 30:16.53.

See You Sunday

Only the 10k's crowned champions on the track today, all the other racing was to earn a spot in Sunday's finals. Washington saw two women and four men progress through prelims today.

In the men's 400-meter hurdles, Jonathan Frazier hung on to the ninth and final spot in the finals. He clocked a time of 51.09 seconds, taking third in his heat.

In the women's 1,500-meters, Chloe Foerster and Mia Cochran were placed in the same heat, and they worked together to perfection. Foerster left nothing to chance by setting a solid pace out front, and Cochran followed right behind. They wound up 1-2 to auto advance with no trouble. Foerster ran 4:15.26 and Cochran went 4:17.06.

Moving on to the men's 1,500-meters, Reuben Reina cruised to the victory in the first of four heats in a time of 3:44.79. One heat later, Thom Diamond earned another big Q with a second-place finish to become the second Husky advancing.

In the final heat, Tyler Bilyard worked to keep things moving, knowing the time to beat to reach the final, and he was able to get that done, coming through in 3:44.06 to get one of the four time qualifiers. The men's 1,500m final on Sunday will feature three Huskies, three Ducks, and three Wolverines among the 12 men.

Day One For Teko

The decathlon kicked things off this morning with the first of Friday's five events. Redshirt freshman Teko Cates is looking to improve on his season-best to try and secure an NCAA Outdoor trip, while scoring the most team points possible. In the 100-meter dash to start, Cates ran a wind-aided season-best of 10.76, which was third overall. He then was third overall again in the long jump with a wind-aided leap of 24-2 1/4. In the shot put, he threw 41-5 1/4 which was seventh in that event.

In the high jump, the day's fourth event, Cates worked his way up and up and up, clearing six total bars, eventually making 6-11 1/2 to win the event with an outdoor season-best. Finishing up in the 400-meters, Cates had a PR of 50.23 for seventh overall.

That gave him a day one total of 4,182 points to sit in second-place overall. He is 39 points ahead of his day one score from the Mt. SAC Relays earlier this season.

Dawg Bites

- Nathan Neil and Josiah Tostenson were both seventh in their respective 1,500m prelim heats, and did not advance.
- Carson Olmstead finished 11th in the men's javelin with a best of 212-feet, 6-inches.
- Mikayla Gardley was 18th overall in the women's 400m hurdles prelims in 1:00.82 and Anna Terrell was 21st in 1:01.36.

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