Brigham Young junior Tiffany Lott broke her own meet record to capture the heptathlon title at the 35th annual Western Athletic Conference Track & Field Championships on Wednesday.
Lott totaled 5,778 points to top the mark of 5,609 that she set in 1995. After missing last year's meet because of a knee injury, she won the heptathlon title for the third time in three WAC appearances.Following Lott in the heptathlon standings were teammates Marsha Mark (5,336), Shauna Rohbock (5,206) and Kristen McQuade (4,782).
To open the second day of her event, Lott placed fourth in the long jump (18 feet, 21/4 inches) and then won the javelin (166-0). Those marks allowed her to establish a record even though she finished last in ninth place in the 800-meter run (2 minutes, 39.37 seconds).
"I feel like I'm coming along," said Lott, who had already qualified for the NCAA Championships with a season best of 6,042 points on April 2. "The 800 is feeling good even though I didn't try to run it at all. So things are starting to come. I just have to put all seven events together at the NCAAs."
Lott, the national leader in the women's 100 hurdles with a time of 12.72 seconds, calculated before the 800 that she needed to beat a time of 2:55 in that race to set a meet record.
Her showing also established a record for the San Diego State track, breaking the mark of 5,595 points set in 1983 by both Tonya Alston of UCLA and Joan Russell of Coast Athletics.
In the decathlon, the Air Force Academy's Marcus Nichols placed first with 7,053 points, ahead of Southern Methodist's Marius Sagen (6,789) and Rice's Bobby Constantine (6,652).