Raising the Bar: Zharia Taylor Makes Her Mark at UC Irvine

From high school state finalist to junior college All-American to NCAA Division I Championship qualifier, Zharia Taylor has excelled at every stage of her career. 

Zharia is in her first year at UC Irvine after transferring from Cerritos College where she initially picked up the heptathlon in 2024. An injury earlier this season slowed down her progress in the multis, but she came back strong in her main event – the high jump. 

After earning all-conference honors, Zharia set a personal record to tie for ninth among the top-48 high jumpers in the region at the NCAA West First Round to punch her ticket to nationals. She is the Anteaters’ first NCAA Championship qualifier on the women’s side since 2009.

Zharia first started competing in track & field when she was in sixth grade. Her friends wanted to play a sport, so she tagged along to tryouts for volleyball, basketball, and track. She ended up making the track team and has stuck with it ever since, becoming a standout at Long Beach Poly High School, where she was a 2022 CIF state finalist, and the 2021 CIF-Southern Section Division I champion in the high jump. 

Zharia then took her talents to the University of Southern Mississippi, but her collegiate career didn’t get off to the start she expected. Her coach left one month after school started and it never quite felt like the right fit for her. She still had a solid freshman campaign with the Golden Eagles, but after the season, Zharia chose to enter the transfer portal before ultimately deciding to come back home and go the junior college route.

“I was thinking about choosing another Division I school, but I felt I wasn’t mentally ready,” Zharia said. “My old coach at Cerritos College reached out and was just like come here and I’ll train you.”

When Zharia arrived at Cerritos, she was first asked if she also wanted to try the javelin, and that evolved into the heptathlon. She saw immediate success, earning All-America honors in both the heptathlon and high jump.

UC Irvine head coach Jeff Perkins took notice and recruited Zharia to bolster an already impressive multis crew for the Anteaters that included two-time Big West champion Jolie Robinson and former Falcon Jazzmine Davis. 

Zharia got out to a strong start during the 2025 indoor season, finishing fourth in the pentathlon at the MPSF Championships. Her score of 3,785 points ranks fourth in school history, while her high jump mark of 1.79 meters (5-10.5) during the conference meet put her second among UCI’s all-time leaders. She saw similar success in the first few weeks of the outdoor campaign with two individual victories in the high jump, including at the Challenge Cup where she also cleared 1.79m. Then, after her third meet, Zharia suffered an injury during practice that altered the course of her season.

“Once I got hurt, it was too much for me to constantly train for the multis,” Zharia said. “That broke me down a little bit because I wasn’t healing as fast as I wanted to, and I figured my season might be over. Then I just started thinking it’s okay. I might be ready for conference, but if not, then I’m not. I started to develop the mindset that I still had a pretty good season regardless of the outcome and I’m just going to hope for the best and have fun.”

Zharia started training solely for the high jump and did end up getting herself ready for conference where she claimed runner-up honors, scoring important points for the ‘Eaters, who won the program’s first Big West Women’s Track & Field Championship.

“I wanted to win high jump, and it just didn’t go as planned,” Zharia said. “When we found out (the team championship) would come down to the triple jump and 4x400 relay, it was nerve-wracking, but we were all having fun. Once we realized our big dawg at the end, Luz (Mercado), locked it in, we were honestly so happy because we knew all year that it was something we could do.”

With a Big West team title and an all-conference performance secured, Zharia’s focus turned to NCAAs. Her high jump PR from earlier in the season remained among the top-48 in the West region, qualifying her for the NCAA First Round at Texas A&M. 

Most people would feel pressure going into their first NCAA meet, but Zharia was about as relaxed as one could be. She maintained her mindset of having fun and not focusing too much on the outcome. Her event was scheduled for the final day of the meet, and she was so excited to cheer on her teammates and see some old high school friends that there was a moment she forgot she wasn’t just a spectator. But, when the time came to compete, Zharia was ready. She did not miss at her first three heights with her final clearance being a personal-record 1.81m (5-11.25). Her height and number of attempts put her in a tie for ninth to send her to the NCAA Championships.

“I’ve been to a lot of bigger track meets so the foundation and how they ran the meet was pretty normal for me,” Zharia said. “Practice had also been going well, and I was really in tune. I knew I could jump with those girls regardless of what their marks were prior, so I was just having fun.”

For Zharia, fun has translated to success this season and she hopes to carry that into the NCAA Championships on Saturday.

“I’m just taking it one day at a time and hope that whatever happens is a good close to my season. I’m not too worried about going out there and winning, just going out there to execute. If I can PR, I’ll take that and go. I would like to make first-team All-American (top-8), but if it doesn’t happen, I know I’ve still had a really good season.”

“To be first-team All-American would be huge,” Coach Perkins added. “At this point, her confidence is at an all-time high so we’re looking forward to seeing what she can replicate based off her first round performance at Texas A&M.”