The indoor regular season came to a close this weekend for UA track and field, and despite dropping two meets to rival Arizona State, strong performances have the Wildcats feeling confident heading into next week's conference championships.

Although the men's and women's squads both lost to ASU at the Northern Arizona Double Dual meet, Friday was a day that saw several Arizona athletes achieve both personal and school bests. Both squads managed to split the weekend meet, losing to ASU and beating the Lumberjacks of Northern Arizona University. The men ran away with victory over NAU 94-56, but fell short to the Sun Devils, 75-74. The women defeated NAU 79-59 while losing to ASU 79-55.

Up Next UA track and field in Boise, Idaho

"If we pushed hard in this meet, we could have done a few things differently to make the score look a little differently in our favor," said head coach Fred Harvey. "I don't like losing to them, but if you look at what we did, national qualifiers, school records, it was an incredible meet."

The Wildcats remain focused on next weekend's Mountain Pacific Conference Championships in Boise, Idaho.

"We didn't come to the meet to lose the meet, but our biggest focus was not on team total points, but on the conference championships next weekend," Harvey said.

The weekend meet, designed to be a tune-up for the indoor championships, provided many highlights for the Wildcats.

For the women, junior Sharifa Jones took first place in her long jumping debut. The junior transfer from the University of Michigan won with a leap of 20 feet, fending off 2002 long jump champion runner up Tiffany Greer of ASU.

Senior Seynabou Ndiaye sprinted her way into the Arizona record books with a time of 6.76 in the 55-meter dash. The record gives the senior from Dakar, Senegal a bid for the NCAA championships. Also earning NCAA qualifying marks for the Wildcats were Jones and freshman Angel Perkins. Jones' time of 7.68 seconds in the 55-meter hurdles earned her a bid to the NCAA championships in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Despite battling the flu, Perkins claimed her NCAA bid with a 400-meter time of 54.24 seconds.

On the men's side, junior pole-vaulter Kevin Opalka set a new season's best mark with a leap of 17 feet, 5 inches. Also leaping to a new personal best in the high hurdles was sophomore Matt Johnson. The sophomore from Mission Viejo, Calif. cleared 6 feet, 8 inches, topping his old indoor mark.

Next weekend the Wildcats will return to Boise, Idaho to compete in the Mountain Pacific Conference Championships. Arizona last competed in Boise two weeks ago against Pac-10 powerhouses UCLA and Stanford.