photo by: Carter Gaskins/Special to the Journal-World

KU's Tayton Klein is excited about his jump in the men's long jump competition at the Kansas Relays at Rock Chalk Park on Saturday, April 20, 2024.

Among Kansas’ 15 total victories between Friday and Saturday’s action at the Kansas Relays were two notable first-place finishes from athletes who clinched personal records in the women’s pole vault and men’s long jump.

Decathlete Tayton Klein locked in on the long jump this weekend with a 7.40-meter jump in the second round to win the event. He cleared teammate Dillon Peters by 0.11 meters for the win.

Pole vaulter Erica Ellis preceded him with a PR on Friday, beating out teammate Mason Meinershagen, who has continued to impress in her sophomore year after qualifying for Olympic trials in Eugene, Oregon, last summer. Ellis grabbed Kansas’ first win in a field event as she won the event for the first time at the Relays with a PR of 4.49 in the women’s pole vault.

She beat out her teammates, Kansas’ “vault gals,” for the title, which is not an easy task for a group with some of the best pole vaulters in the country.

“It’s so motivating,” Ellis said of the competition that surrounds her in practice every day. “With it being my last collegiate year, it’s just so fun for all of us to be, like, number one in the country multiple times this year. It’s so inspiring.”

Both she and Klein know that Kansas’ first home meet is only the beginning of a serious stretch of the season, as national qualifiers come up quickly in just over a month.

“It’s just going back into the lab now, like (this is) just the start. So we’re excited to see what else we can do,” Ellis said.

While long jump was the only event Klein competed in on Saturday, he has much more to prepare for in the closing months of the outdoor season as he plans to once again compete in the decathlon at the Big 12 Championships, which will also be held at Rock Chalk Park.

But until then, he’s trying to give his body a break from the grueling schedule that he puts it through on a week-to-week basis while still ramping up for the season’s finale.

“At this time of the year, less is more,” he said. “We’ve worked hard all year. Now is the time to kind of let our body de-load and feel healthy and feel strong so we can really capitalize on these high-level experiences we’re going to have coming up and going into championship season.”

Part of that process of preparation comes with competing in the first outdoor meet at Rock Chalk Park through the Relays. That is especially true this season when the facility underwent several upgrades during the indoor season to make Rock Chalk Park, as meet director Tim Byers said on Wednesday, “one of the best facilities in the country outdoors.”

“If the weather is good here, it’s one of the best in the country, for sure,” Klein said. “And we poured a lot into this place, and I’m just very thankful to be able to compete here and train here. And hosting Big 12 (Championships), I haven’t actually experienced that in my time here, so it’ll be awesome to have that home crowd cheering us on at that high-level meet.”

He continued: “We’ve been out here practicing for the last couple of weeks, seeing them work, and it’s been awesome to see. They’ve put a lot of work in this place, and it definitely, I mean, makes us want to work hard. It makes us want to do better for the team.”

The Jayhawks certainly showed that on Saturday as they grabbed nine other victories in addition to Klein’s in the women’s long jump, men’s 110-meter hurdles, men’s 400 meters, women’s 400-meter hurdles, women’s and men’s 1500 meters, men’s 4×400-meter relays (invitational and general) and women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase.

KU will return to action in the Rock Chalk Classic, another home meet at Rock Chalk Park next Saturday.