The California track & field team will conclude its regular season Friday evening at the one-day Payton Jordan Invitational at Stanford's Cobb Track and Angell Field, with each athlete hoping to better their seeding or hit qualifying standards as they prepare for the ACC Outdoor Championships in two weeks' time. The meet is set to begin at 4 p.m. PT and will have live results posted on RecordTiming.
 
Cal last competed at the Mt. SAC Relays and the Bryan Clay Invitational on April 15-18, with four Golden Bears posting program top 10s. Senior Ali Sahaida posted a massive outdoor PR of 4.55m (14-11), good for a new program record, to earn the ACC Women's Field Athlete of the Week award for the second time this season, while sophomore Nairobi Smith tied the third-fastest 200m time in Cal history (23.16). For the men, junior Justin Pretre ran the 1500m in 3:40.78 to rise four spots to No. 5 on Cal's all-time list and redshirt junior Seth Johnson recorded a total of 7786 points in the decathlon (sixthbest in school history).
 
PAYTON JORDAN INVITATIONAL (May 1 – Stanford, California)
Event Info
Live Results
 
CALIFORNIA ENTRIES (MEN)
Program top-10 holders marked with an asterisk
(FR) or (R-FR) indicates that the athlete is a freshman or redshirt freshman
 
100m – Aidan Orias, Wazell Wright
200m – Aidan Orias, Wazell Wright
400m – Antonio Bayon (FR), Arian Naim, Isaiah Shaw*
800m – Jackson Hein (FR), Lamarr Kirk Jr., Jack Paradise (FR), Gabriel Rodriguez
1500m – Caden Carney, Julian Doak, Rowan FitzGerald, Zac Gibson
5000m – Roland Ruckmann-Barnes
10,000m – John Sesteaga
110m Hurdles – Donovan Bradley*, Luke Buddie, Seth Johnson
High Jump – Brandon Cheeks II, Victor Ezike Jr., Seth Johnson
Pole Vault – Kai Anderson (FR), Antonio Bayon (FR), Luke Buddie, Will Siemens, Parker Terrill*
Long Jump – David Brok, Victor Ezike Jr., Javon Hampton Jr., Jason Plumb*, Trevor Rogers, Chukwunonso Udeh
Triple Jump – Jeremiah Bolaños, Frankie Cruz Jr., Kosi Nwafor
Shot Put – Nik Iwankiw, Matas Mikulėnas (FR), Eliot Traxler (FR)
Discus – Nik Iwankiw, Eliot Traxler (FR)
Hammer – Kai Barham, Kai Burich, Miles Clark (R-FR)
Javelin – Seth Johnson
                                                                                                                                       
CALIFORNIA ENTRIES (WOMEN)
Program top-10 holders marked with an asterisk
(FR) or (R-FR) indicates that the athlete is a freshman or redshirt freshman
 
100m – Saqqara Ruffin, Nairobi Smith*, Inara Ukawuba, Kaitlyn Williams (FR)
200m – Nairobi Smith*, Kaitlyn Williams (FR)
800m – Salma Bejia (FR), Carolina Dawson
1500m – Addie Johnson, Lily Montilla (FR), Sophie Tau
5000m – Addie Johnson*, Sabine Kim (R-FR), Georgia McCorkle, Sophie Tau*
10,000m – Sabine Kim (R-FR)
100m Hurdles – Saqqara Ruffin*, Inara Ukawuba*
3000m Steeplechase – Georgia McCorkle*, Sarah Perkins*
High Jump – Zahra Amos, Kimiko Hirahara (FR), Grace Reinhardt-Perez
Pole Vault – Anya Patel (FR), Ali Sahaida*
Long Jump – Caitlyn Johnson (FR)
Triple Jump – Leah Anderson, Avery Hart (FR)
Shot Put – Lucija Leko*
Discus – Lucija Leko*
Hammer – Adrianna Coleman*, Audrey Jacobs*, Isabella Popejoy, Valentina Savva*, Angie Schykerynec
Javelin – Grace Reinhardt-Perez
 
VAULT QUEEN
Senior Ali Sahaida is the nation's No. 4-ranked women's pole vaulter after crushing the outdoor school record at the Mt. SAC Relays, improving her career high to 4.55m (14-11) and becoming the first woman since 2018 (Lauren Martinez) to concurrently own Cal's indoor and outdoor program standards. Earlier this season, she placed fifth at the 2026 NCAA Indoor Championships in her first time competing on the national stage, holding her own in the highest mark-for-place field ever assembled at the indoor collegiate level with a school-record mark of 4.56m (14-11.5) to earn First-Team All-America status. It was the highest indoor finish by a Cal women's pole vaulter in program history and the second-best finish overall, only behind Katie Morgan's outdoor national title in 2008.
 
IN THE RANKINGS
Five of Cal's four-deep event squads rank in the national top 25, including three in the top 10. The women's hammer squad of Valentina Savva, Audrey Jacobs, Adrianna Coleman and Isabella Popejoy currently leads the group with a No. 2 ranking.
 
SMITH, ASCENDANT
Nairobi Smith has etched her name all over the Cal record books in her breakout sophomore season, with four individual top-10 times to her name so far in 2026. Smith's indoor campaign saw her rise steadily up the Bears all-time 200m list, eventually breaking the program record with a bronze-medal performance of 23.52 at the ACC Indoor Championships to cap off a season in which she also recorded Cal's all-time No. 6 60m entry (7.40). In just her second meet of the outdoor season, Smith made her debut on Cal's outdoor 200m top-10 list with the No. 4 time in team history (23.28), fastest by any Bear since Ezinne Abba in 2022; the next week, she made her collegiate 100m debut with a time of 11.25 at the Brutus Hamilton Invitational, good for a new meet record and the second-fastest time in program history (also behind Abba in 2022).
 
GOING UP
Cal's pole vaulters are responsible for five of the Bears' eight ACC weekly awards this season.  Ali Sahaida, who owns Cal's outdoor and indoor school records, has won the ACC Women's Field Athlete of the Week twice so far this season and become the Bears' first female pole vaulter in program history to earn multiple weekly awards in the same year.
Sam Novak, who ended the indoor season as the NCAA's No. 1 freshman and the No. 3 pole vaulter in the conference, was named the ACC Men's Freshman of the Week in his collegiate debut after surpassing a 19-year-old program freshman record and winning the event title, then won the same award three weeks later after crushing that mark with another win, becoming the first Cal pole vaulter in history to win multiple weekly awards in the same season.  In the first week of the Bears' outdoor campaign, Kai Anderson posted what was then the second-best mark by a freshman nationwide to earn ACC Men's Freshman of the Week recognition, marking the first time in program history that two Cal pole vaulters have won the same award in the same season.
 
RECORDS, RECORDS, RECORDS
The Bears have reached seven different school records, three different freshman records and one meet record so far this season. On the men's side, new all-time indoor program bests were set by junior Lamarr Kirk Jr. (1000m - 2:27.97), freshman Jackson Hein (600m - 1:18.83) and redshirt junior Seth Johnson (300m - 34.65), while senior Ali Sahaida (pole vault - 4.56m/14-11.5), junior Mari Testa (60m hurdles - 8.21, Feb. 13) and Nairobi Smith (200m - 23.47, Feb. 28) have set new program bests for the women. In addition to Hein's 600m rookie record, Sam Novak and Pietro Camilli also reset a pair of Cal all-time freshman marks multiple times: Novak, the first freshman pole vaulter in program history to cross the 17-foot mark indoors, is now tied for third in program history with a best mark of 5.45m (17-10.5), while Camilli has become Cal's first male freshman weight thrower to cross 20 meters with a top result of 20.44m (67-0.75) that ranks No. 2 in school history. The outdoor season has also seen multiple records being broken: Smith recorded the first meet record of the Bears' season in her first collegiate 100m race, taking the event title at the Brutus Hamilton Invitational with a time of 11.25 (second-fastest in program history), while Sahaida crushed Cal's outdoor pole vault record with a mark of 4.55m (14-11) at the Mt. SAC Relays.
 
STAY POSTED
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