Five members of the Arizona men's track and field team captured individual titles at the 2005 Mountain-Pacific Sports Federation Indoor Track & Field Championships this weekend in Seattle, setting two school records and three meet records in the process.

The women's team had an individual champion as well, as senior thrower Sara Vigil set a school record in the women's weight-throw with a toss of 63-4 3/4.

"Anytime you do that (break a meet record), you're competing at a super-high level, especially in this conference," said Arizona head coach Fred Harvey.

In the team-score competition hosted in the University of Washington's Dempsey Indoor, the Wildcat men finished in third place with 93 points, and the women's team finished fifth with 66.

UCLA captured the meet on the men's side, while Stanford won the women's event for the fourth straight year.

Harvey said he believed the men's team had a legitimate shot at winning the meet had a few more breaks gone their way.

"We would like to think that we can go into every competition and have a perfect competition, have everything go exactly our way, but that's not the nature of a two-day competition," he said.

"We did what we thought what we were capable of doing, which is getting in the top three."

Heading into Saturday, the men's team sat in sixth place with 13 points after four events.

Needing a big day to move up in the standings, two members of the men's distance team stepped up.

The Wildcats finished 1-2 in the men's mile, as juniors Jonah Maiyo and Robert Cheseret finished within two-tenths of a second of each other.

Maiyo came in at a meet-record 3:59.08 and Cheseret at 3:59.23.

Cheseret also made his mark in the men's 3,000-meter, setting school and meet records as he won the event in 7:51.66.

"That was really exciting for everyone," Harvey said. "[Cheseret's] training, according to (assistant coach James) Li, has definitely geared him towards that type of performance."

Junior distance runner Obed Mutanya placed fifth in the 3,000m at 8:03.04, improving his NCAA provisional-qualifying time.

Mutanya also placed second in the 5,000m (13:57.28).

Freshman sprinter Bobby McCoy gave the Wildcats another champion, as he won the 200m with his fastest time of the season (21.47 seconds).

Sophomore decathlete Jake Arnold won the heptathlon title, an event that spanned both days of the competition.

Arnold set new meet and school records as he improved upon his National Collegiate Athletic Association provisional-qualifying mark with a score of 5,518 points.

Junior thrower Sean Shields gave the men their fifth champion, winning the shot put with a NCAA provisional-qualifying throw of 63-3 1/2, his best toss this season.

Sophomore thrower Adam Kuehl also had a NCAA provisional qualifier, placing fifth (58 feet, 10 3/4).

The women's team climbed in the standings Saturday as well, as they sat in eighth place with 19 points after six events on Friday.

Strong performances from several members enabled them to move up three spots to garner a fifth-place performance.

In the women's shot put, senior thrower Ilona Rutjes scored some points for her team with a second place finish. She improved her NCAA qualifying mark with a throw of 52 feet.

Freshman thrower Megan Howard placed third in the event (51-1/4).

Senior Connie Jerz finished third in the women's pole vault, as she cleared 13-4 1/4.

Both teams return to action Saturday for their first home meet of the season, as Arizona hosts the Wildcat Classic at Roy P. Drachman Stadium.

Athletes who qualified for the NCAA Indoor Championships, held March 11-12 in Fayetteville, Ark., will take the next two weeks off to prepare for the meet.