Kansas hosts the 100th Kansas Relays on Friday, April 14, 2023 at Rock Chalk Park.

In a fitting series of results given the meet’s name, the University of Kansas experienced some of its greatest success in a series of relay races on Friday, the second day of the 102nd Kansas Relays.

KU claimed its first two victories of the three-day meet in a pair of 4×800-meter relays on Friday morning.

The women’s 4×800 team of Bethany Druse, Marisa January, Aaliyah Moore and Emmaculate Jemutai surged past its counterpart from Cloud County Community College in the final stretch, securing first place by less than two seconds with a time of eight minutes, 56.75 seconds.

In the next event of the meet, the men’s team of Ryo Higuchi, Parker Walion, Tanner Talley and Quenton Walion led nearly wire-to-wire in its 4×800 relay and took the gold by finishing in 7:33.29.

The strong showings continued for KU in the distance medley relays, each of which only featured four schools competing.

On the women’s side, KU’s foursome of two-sport freshman Ebba Cronholm, Kenadi Krueger, Grace Cramblett and Ethel Amissah won by nearly a full minute by completing the relay in 11:49.37.

The men relied on TJ Robinson, Samuel Trumble, Garrett Wilmes and Nathan Thengvall to take first place in 10:08.70.

Also on Friday, KU’s vaunted “vault gals,” No. 1 in the nation in the indoor season, turned in a dominant performance. They occupied the top five spots in the women’s elite pole vault event with graduate student Erica Ellis (a personal-best 4.49 meters) in first place, followed by senior Gabby Hoke and standout sophomore Mason Meinershagen (4.39), then junior Kade Joslin (4.14) and freshman Madison Snody (3.99).

Two freshmen performed well in the women’s shot put. Madeleine Fey was runner-up with a throw of 15.25 meters, behind Iowa’s Wisdom Williams. Fellow Jayhawk Addie Cline came in fourth at 14.50.

KU junior Charli Foreman finished fourth in the triple jump by jumping 11.91 meters. She had an early lead after the first two attempts but did not improve on her positioning as the event went on.

Joseph Kieny was sixth of 21 qualifying competitors in the men’s discus at 54.93. Dimitrios Pavlidis, winner of the event at consecutive editions of the Kansas Relays, did not record a result.

Preliminary action

• Jayhawks occupied seven of the top 10 spots in the preliminaries for the women’s 400-meter hurdles, as nine participated in the event overall.

Smith continued her hot streak, taking first place after previously winning the event at the John Jacobs Collegiate Invitational and Arkansas Spring Invitational. Her time was 58.76. She was closely followed by fellow heat winners and sophomores Aleksandra Wolczak (59.77) and Madison Campbell (1:00.37).

Senior Addison Brooks (seventh overall, 1:00.81), freshman Kaleigh Frazier (eighth, 1:01.28) and sophomore Abree Winfrey (ninth, 1:01.82) made the cut for Saturday’s 1:50 p.m. final. Freshman Alinah Sarratt fell just short of her trio of teammates by a margin of 0.19 seconds.

• In the men’s 400-meter hurdles, freshman Jack Markstrom set a new personal best and took first place with a time of 53.10. He was KU’s lone qualifier in the event, as teammate Donovan LaJeunesse came in 11th.

• Among seven Jayhawks who raced in the men’s 400-meter dash prelims, three won their heats and advanced to Saturday. Junior Grant Lockwood finished second overall and first in Heat 5 with a time of 46.97. Sophomore Josiah Parris’ 47.69 in Heat 3 was good for sixth overall, and freshman Jackson Belding was the ninth and final qualifier with his time of 48.11 in Heat 1.

• Elsewhere, two KU athletes emerged from a competitive Heat 4 in the women’s 100-meter dash.

No other heat featured more than two qualifiers, but sophomore Lillian Harris’ time of 12.04 seconds was third best in her heat but fifth best overall, while freshman Brooke Freeman’s 12.16 was fourth best in the heat and ninth best overall. Freeman beat out Destiny Mitchell of Indian Hills Community College by just three thousandths of a second.

Harris and Freeman will compete in the 100-meter finals at 1:32 p.m. on Saturday.

They won’t have long to rest following that event because they also both qualified for the 200-meter dash final at 3:15, winning their respective heats on Friday with times of 24.22 (Freeman) and 24.48 (Harris). A third Jayhawk, Ghanaian sophomore Pearl Awanya, will join them as a non-automatic qualifier after she came up 0.02 seconds short of Harris in Heat 4.

• On the men’s side, KU freshman Dean McCune and sophomore Jeremiah Smith advanced to the finals of the 110-meter hurdles.

McCune won his heat with a time of 14.51 seconds and came in third overall by a margin of just one hundredth of a second, while Smith, at 14.53, finished behind Iowa State’s Grayson Hartman in his heat and posted the top result among non-winners.

McCune and Smith will be back in action at 1 p.m. Saturday. McCune will also compete in the 200-meter dash at 3:18 after posting the fourth-best overall time at 21.55 seconds in preliminary competition.

• In the final collegiate event of the day, what were listed as Kansas “B” and “C” teams finished first and ninth, respectively, in the men’s 4×400-meter relay to advance to Saturday evening’s finals.