Westover alum Jaylen Mclloyd wins at Missouri track meet

Great Bend, Kansas – Jaylen Mclloyd has a way of turning unfinished business into motivation.

Nearly a year after leaving Hugh Mills Stadium as a state champion who still felt he hadn’t quite touched his ceiling, the former Westover track and field standout took another soaring step forward Saturday — this time on a college runway in the Midwest.

McLloyd, now a freshman at Barton Community College in Great Bend, Kansas, won the men’s long jump at the Alexis Jarrett Invitational Indoor meet at the University of Missouri with a career-best leap of 24 feet, 5 inches.

It was the kind of jump he had been chasing for a long time.

Last May, Mclloyd claimed the GHSA Class 3A state championship in the long jump at Hugh Mills Stadium with a winning mark of 23 feet, 5.5 inches, beating the field by two and a half inches. But even on the day he became a state champion, he was already thinking about something bigger.

“I didn’t have a great morning,” McLloyd said then. “I didn’t even get a good breakfast, and I’m kind of disappointed because I wanted to hit that 25. But even though it wasn’t a great morning, I came out and did my best.”

At the time, his personal best stood at 24 feet, 4 inches. Saturday in Missouri, he finally went beyond it.

Now competing at the next level, McLloyd’s jump of 24-5 not only won the event but marked the longest leap of his career, a small but meaningful milestone for an athlete who has always measured himself against bigger goals than the competition in front of him.

The performance is also an early sign that the transition from high school star to college competitor is going smoothly for the former Patriot, who arrived at Barton as a freshman still refining both his technique and consistency.

For those who watched him at Westover, the potential was always obvious. Mclloyd was a high-flyer with rare explosiveness, capable of turning speed and spring into eye-opening distances. Even on the day he won a state title, he was already talking about what he hadn’t done yet.

Now, he’s starting to check off those boxes.

A 24-foot, 5-inch jump doesn’t quite reach the 25-foot mark he once talked about, but it’s closer — and, more importantly, it’s proof that he’s still climbing.

From Hugh Mills Stadium to a college meet in Missouri, Jaylen Mclloyd is still doing what he’s always done best:

Running fast, taking off, and seeing just how far he can fly.