A year ago, the Florida Gators left College Station, Texas, with a foul taste in their mouths. At the 2025 SEC Indoor Track and Field Championships, coach Mike Holloway’s women’s squad finished 11th, the worst conference placement in program history.
Saturday night, when the Gators walk out the doors of the Fasken Indoor Track and Field Facility at Texas A&M, they’ll do so with their heads held high, only weighed down by a trophy in their arms and an abundance of medals around their necks.
With 77 points, the Florida women’s track and field team won the SEC Indoor Championship for the ninth time in program history. It’s the first time the Gators have hoisted this trophy since 2014 and also the first time any team other than the Arkansas Razorbacks has summited the SEC mountaintop since that same year.
This is a title fueled by balance. While the lion's share of those 77 points – 42, to be precise – came from distance athletes, the Gators scored in sprints, jumps, throws, relays, distance events and even the pentathlon.
“It was a total team effort,” Holloway said. “We didn’t win an event, we just fought and fought and fought all weekend, and the ladies just kept coming.”
Holloway’s message to the team all fall and into the season has simply been to remember who they are. He feels the program lost some of its pride last year in a season riddled with injuries and postseason frustrations. In the first glimpse of postseason action for this iteration of the Gators, it’s clear the team remembers now.
“We’ve talked about that a lot this year, the pride and passion that runs through this program,” Holloway said. “We saw that on display this weekend, everybody that went to the line displayed that.”
This is the anatomy of an SEC Championship-winning team:
Pauline Bikembo - 7th place, pentathlon
Bikembo’s pentathlon set the tone for the Gators, as the All-American from last winter notched two team points thanks to a 4,140-point total. The sophomore was perfectly in line with her personal best pace through three events, totaling 2,552 points. Her performance was fueled by season’s bests of 8.58 in the 60-meter hurdles, 1.74 meters in the high jump, and 11.81 meters in the shot put. Bikembo’s showing in the high jump was particularly impressive, as she cleared four bars before recording her first miss and finished eight centimeters above what had been her best mark of the season.
The long jump, which is typically Bikembo’s best event, tripped her up a bit. She only managed to jump 5.92 meters, the worst mark of her collegiate career. When the dust settled following the 800 meters, she had put the Gators on the board and tacked on over 200 points to her performance from the Razorback Invitational on Jan. 30.
Hilda Olemomoi and Judy Chepkoech - 2nd and 4th place, 5,000 meters
There was strangely little racing to do in this competition, as Arkansas senior Sydney Vaught hit the front on the first lap and set an aggressive pace that no other athlete was willing to go with. With Vaught gapping the field from gun to tape, the chase pack wasn’t even in sight of the broadcast camera.
Had the camera panned back, it would have found the Florida teammates in a tight pack of runners that had no interest in working to reel Vaught back in. Olemomoi and Alabama freshman Caren Kiplagat picked up the pace at the halfway point of the race, dropping Chepkoech into no man’s land for the rest of the race.
Olemomoi couldn’t shake off Kiplagat, as the two were never more than 1.5 seconds apart at any point of the race, but veteran experience won out. Olemomoi came through the line in 15:12.13, just a hair ahead of Kiplagat. Despite racing on her own for the last two kilometers, Chepkoech managed to remain steady and finished strong in 15:16.77.
Distance medley relay - 2nd place
There’s an old adage in track and field that distance medley relays are only truly decided by the anchor leg. That held true in College Station Friday evening, as the Gators and South Carolina handed off the baton for the last time less than a half-second apart. Impressive runs by senior Beth Morley on the 1,200-meter leg, freshman Malia Campbell on 400-meter leg, and junior Layla Haynes on the 800-meter leg were wiped away as it came down to a duel between freshman Claire Stegall and South Carolina junior Salma Elbadra.
Knowing that the finishing time had to be quick for Florida to qualify for nationals, Stegall had no choice but to push the pace from the front. There was no movement between the two early in the race, with Elbadra more than content to sit in lockstep on her rival’s shoulder. Stegall threw in a surge with around 300 meters to go, but she wasn’t able to break Elbadra, who passed her on the final turn. South Carolina secured the win, but Stegall’s 4:27.00 split brought the Gators home in 10:46.45, shaving six seconds off the program record and earning a place in Fayetteville.
Imani Washington - 6th place, weight throw
Washington had a breakthrough day, recording the four best throws of her career. Included in the series were the senior’s first two marks over the 21-meter barrier, as she went out to 21.00 meters in round two and 21.03 meters in round four, good enough to situate her as the ninth-ranked performer in UF history. After resetting her personal best in all four meets of the 2025 season, this was Washington’s first performance of this nature in 2026, building strong momentum into the outdoor season.
Alida van Daalen - 3rd place, shot put
Van Daalen got “Finals Saturday” off to a stellar start for Florida with a significant season’s best of 18.13 meters, collecting six team points. She landed her best mark of the day on her second attempt, clearing the 18-meter barrier for the first time since May 23, 2024. The junior’s trophy case at the SEC Indoor Championships includes a gold from 2023, silver from 2024 and now a bronze.
Claire Stegall and Tia Wilson - 2nd and 4th place, mile
Stegall, Wilson and Elbadra made the three fastest preliminary times look effortless, setting up a rematch between relay anchors with the defending conference champion thrown into the mix.
The 10-woman field was congested and slow early on, coming through the first quarter-mile at nearly five-minute pace. In a sight reminiscent of the relay two nights earlier, Stegall was the one to take initiative and make the race fast. The Tennessee native started clicking off 33-second laps, with Elbadra, once again, content to sit on her shoulder and follow.
The final 1,200 meters of the race played out the exact same way the relay did, with Elbadra sliding ahead on Stegall’s outside on the backstraight. The Gator did have more of an answer this time, closing the gap to just .09 seconds at the line and taking home silver in 4:30.81.
Wilson’s title defense was admirable, but she dropped off the leading pair with about a quarter-mile to go, eventually finishing fourth in 4:35.52. The mile was an event that the Gators needed to rack up points in to build momentum for a good day on the track, and Stegall and Wilson delivered with 13. Their strong runs momentarily moved the Gators into the pole position in the team race.
Sydney Sutton - 4th place, 400 meters
Sutton needed to run an indoor personal best just to make it into the final, covering two laps in 52.27 seconds on Friday evening. After having already qualified for the 200-meter final the day before, it set the freshman from Maryland up for an unbelievably busy last day of competition.
Her Saturday started with the 400-meter final, where, racing out of a disadvantaged inside lane, she took nearly a full second off of her day-old personal best with a 51.46-second clocking. Despite being the only underclassman in her race, Sutton got out very aggressively, leading the field as they came through the halfway point. She was overtaken on the second lap, but her time held up through the second, faster-seeded heat for fourth. In addition to a critical five points, she also earned the fourth spot on the program’s all-time list.
Layla Haynes - 5th place, 800 meters
A very strong split on the distance medley relay to open her weekend was clearly a sign of good things to come for Haynes. The Barbadian indoor record holder finished third in her prelim on Friday, running 2:05.01, but that run earned her a time qualifier by a comfortable margin.
In the first SEC final of her career, Haynes used a strong last lap to move up two spots in the closing stages, importantly adding the two points that came along with it. Finishing in 2:05.48, her run was another sign that the misfortune of last year was in the rearview mirror. The Gators were stepping up when the chips were down.
Sydney Sutton and Gabby Matthews - 5th and 8th place, 200 meters
Matthews and Sutton both ran significant personal bests in their preliminary heats. Running 22.87 and 22.90, respectively, both women broke the 23-second barrier for the first time indoors and moved to third and fourth in UF history.
The 200-meter final came just an hour after Sutton’s impressive 400-meter showing, but she did an astounding job of masking any fatigue that came with it. Coming around the track in 22.93, she secured the Gators four more points and nearly matched her qualifying time.
Matthews’ 23.19-second clocking in the final would have been a personal best had she run it 24 hours earlier. That time was only good for eighth in the cutthroat SEC, but every point mattered in a team race that was ultimately decided by just four.
Asia Phillips - 3rd place, triple jump
Phillips finished sixth at each SEC Championship meet as a freshman, but she showed an early intent to ensure that she’d place higher this time out.
On her first attempt, the sophomore went out 13.28 meters, taking a commanding early lead. Phillips was passed as the competition moved along, but she was never pushed off the podium. Her series was impressively consistent, as she recorded six legal marks with five of them at 13 meters or better. Her fifth-round jump was her best at 13.28 meters.
With Phillips’ six points on the board, the team standings began to solidify. With a strong showing from Florida’s 3,000-meter runners, the title would be coming back to Gainesville.
Hilda Olemomoi, Judy Chepkoech and Tia Wilson - 2nd, 6th and 8th place, 3,000 meters
Despite her 5,000-meter accolades, Chepkoech hadn’t registered a seed time this season in the 3,000 meters, so she was slated to run in the first, “slower” heat. With Morley and freshman Isobelle Jones entered to pace Chepkoech’s effort, the intent was to ensure that she could cover 15 laps fast enough that her time would hold up across both heats.
Morley led her teammate through two kilometers in exactly six minutes, leaving Chepkoech with 1,000 meters to make her way onto the scoring table. She finished in 8:59.30, 12 seconds ahead of her next closest competitor. Only three athletes in the following heat came to the line with a personal best faster than Chepkoech’s time, so her odds of scoring seemed strong.
The second heat was destined to be a three-woman race between Olemomoi, Vaught, and national record holder Doris Lemngole of Alabama. Vaught was chasing a national qualifying time, so the onus of leading fell to her early. With 400 meters to go, Lemngole and Olemomoi pulled away from Vaught. The further Olemomoi got from Vaught, the clearer the team title became. Olemomoi crossed the line in 8:46.33, missing a title once again but gaining an all-important eight points. Across her storied career at Florida and Alabama, Olemomoi has now racked up a staggering 75 individual points on the track at SEC Championships to go along with a pair of relay medals and three top-three finishes at the SEC Cross Country Championships.
With Olemomoi securing her second silver, attention turned towards the chase pack. As the clock ticked towards Chepkoech’s time, the flow of finishers was a trickle. Only three other athletes managed to fill in the 13 seconds between Olemomoi’s and Chepkoech’s finishing times. With three points out of the first heat and a crucial double from Wilson – who crossed the line in a personal best of 9:03.16 mere hours after her five points in the mile – the Gators’ total was brought to 77 points. It’s the lowest winning total in conference history and the first time this century that the SEC has been won with less than 100 points, but the trophy is all the same.
From 11th to first. The Florida women are SEC Champions once again.
Contact Paul Hof-Mahoney at phof-mahoney@alligator.org and follow him on X at @phofmahoney.
Paul is a senior in his fourth semester on the track and field/cross country beat for The Alligator. In his free time, you can increasingly see him jogging around Gainesville or endlessly falling deeper down the rabbit hole that is track Twitter.
