St. John’s Places Fourth at BIG EAST Indoor Championships

Friday, February 27

Chicago, Ill.

St. John's University

BIG EAST Indoor Track and Field Championships

St. John’s Places Fourth at BIG EAST Indoor Championships

2/28/2026 8:33:00 PM | Women's Track and Field

Results

Red Storm win two events and secured 10 medals through two days of competition

CHICAGO – The St. John's track and field team finished in fourth place at the 2026 BIG EAST Indoor Track and Field Championships, presented by JEEP. The Red Storm scored 110 points, enroute to two BIG EAST individual champions and 10 total medals.

The Johnnies scored points in 12 of the 18 total events behind 22 different point scorers.

Jamora Alves won the weight throw and Cassandra Lemus-Sodji claimed the top spot in the long jump on Friday. Juliet Smith picked up a silver medal in the weight throw. During Saturday's session, Alves took home silver in the shot put and Fia Viklund jumped to second place in the triple jump. On the track, Naiara Garcia-Moreno and Nora Haugen finished second and third in the 800-meter run, respectively. Nyla Henderson claimed third in the 400-meter dash.

Closing out the medal winners were the 4x800-meter relay quartet of Maddie Kelso-Heap, Leilani Robinson, Garcia-Moreno and Haugen, who ran a program-record time of 8 minutes, 41.12 seconds, and the 4x400-meter relay squad of Henderson, Jalen Jackson, Ryana Dennis and Kettia Ambrose, who clocked a time of 3:42.91.

Garcia-Moreno's 800-meter final time of 2:02.94 is a personal best and program record. Haugen ran 2:03.53 to set an indoor personal best in the half mile and dipped under her previous program-record time of 2:03.90.

Alves' personal-best toss of 17.31m (56 feet, 9.50 inches) came in the fifth round and captured her first weight throw title. The last Johnnie to win the BIG EAST weight throw was Nyla Woods, who won back-to-back years in 2016 and 2017. Smith's first-round heave of 16.92m (55 feet, 6.25 inches) led the competition until Alves took over. In the shot put, the Grenada native threw 14.57m (47 feet, 9.75 inches) for a second-place finish. Smith finished seventh in the same event with a third-round toss of 12.55m (41 feet, 2.25 inches).

Lemus-Sodji led from the beginning of the long jump competition, with all six attempts over 5.89m. The Seattle, Wash., native's 6.22m (20 feet, 5 inches) personal-best jump came in the final round. The senior becomes the first Johnnie since Anointing Onuoha to win the BIG EAST title, doing so in 2016.

Viklund used a personal-best mark of 12.63m (41 feet, 5.25 inches) on her final attempt to move from fourth to second place.

Henderson placed third in the 400-meter dash, stopping the clock in a personal-best time of 55.07 seconds.

Several Johnnies scored points in their respective events. Lemus-Sodji and Dennis placed sixth and eighth, respectively, in the 60-meter final. In the 60-meter hurdles final, Jerese Allwood and Nia-Ruby Forbes-Agyepong finished sixth and seventh. Ambrose, Jackson and Dennis placed fourth, fifth, sixth and eighth, respectively, in the 200-meter dash final. Rounding out the scorers were Linn Hertz Saebbo and Nyla Branche, who tied for sixth, while Ruth Smith placed eighth in the high jump.

Should any student-athletes qualify, the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships will take place from March 13-14 at the Randal Tyson Track Center in Fayetteville, Ark.