COLORADO SPRINGS -- BYU sophomore track star Amy Menlove received two NCAA automatic qualifying marks during a record-setting day at the Mountain West Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships on Thursday.
Menlove won the pentathlon with 4, 172 points, setting a Mountain West Conference record by nearly 200 points. The sophomore from Sandy received an NCAA automatic qualifying mark in the five-event competition.
"I was really nervous about the competition," Menlove said. "But Coach Poole told me to just have fun and that's what I did."
Menlove also said she just tried to focus on each event as it came up, a strategy that paid off and one she said she plans to use during the next two days of competition.
BYU women's track coach Craig Poole said he was pleased with Menlove's results.
"She's a competitor all the way," Poole said. "She did an outstanding job."
All five Cougar pentathletes finished in the top-10, with each athlete setting numerous personal bests during the competition. Junior Liis Berendsen finished third, receiving an NCAA provisional qualifying mark and setting a personal best in the overall pentathlon score.
Maret Komarova finished fifth and freshmen Julie Andersen and Sarah Lacey placed ninth and 10th overall.
Menlove set a new Mountain West Conference record in the long jump when she leapt 21 feet 4 inches. The jump was also an NCAA automatic qualifying mark. The mark was a conference all-time, conference championship and Cadet Fieldhouse record. She also set her fourth personal best mark of the day with the jump.
On the way to winning the pentathlon, Menlove won two events, scoring over 1,000 points in those two events.
After the high jump, Menlove lost the lead by just two points, but regained the lead and never looked back with another individual season best in the shot put. Komarova won the event with a throw of 44 feet 6 inches, more than three feet farther than the next competitor.
Menlove finished the shot put in fifth, followed by Andersen in ninth, Berendsen in 10th and Lacey in 12th.
The BYU men's heptathlon squad finished the day with the high jump. Sophomore Christ Weirich cleared 6 feet, gaining 653 points to give him 2,518 points on the day, good enough for sixth place with three events to go. Junior Joe Dredge jumped 5 feet 8.5 inches for 577 points, placing him 10th overall with 2,219 points.
BYU men's track coach Mark Robison said the other heptathletes started really well on the first day of the event.
"We had an average day," he said. "The rest of the competition did really well; we'll see what happens tomorrow."
Both Weirich and Dredge gained ground in the heptathlon during the long jump. They jumped season bests during the competition. Weirich cleared 20 feet 3 inches, while Dredge leapt 19 feet 11.5 inches.
Weirich and Dredge's strength is in the pole vault in which they will compete in tomorrow. With a strong showing in the pole vault, the Cougars should make up some ground on the competition.
All five pentathletes set individual season bests during the high jump portion of the competition. Menlove and Berendsen soared during the competition clearing 5 feet 8 inches, finishing in a tie for second.
Lacey finished fifth at 5 feet 5.75 inches, Komarova seventh at 5 feet 4.5 inches and Andersen landed in 16th place after leaping 4 feet 9.5 inches.
Menlove got out to an early lead by winning the 60meter hurdles in a personal and team season-best 8.45, just two hundredths shy of an NCAA provisional qualifying mark. Komarova and Berendsen finished fifth and sixth at 8.97 and 9.01 respectively, both individual season bests. Freshmen Lacey and Andersen placed eighth and 11th.
Competition resumes tomorrow at noon, as the heptathletes finish and the rest of the individual track and field events begin.