SALEM, Ore. --- Biola's men's team ran its best race in school history to finish fifth in a tough field while the women's team placed third overall in the Gold races at the 37th Charles Bowles Invitational hosted by Willamette University on Saturday.
The men's team stole the show with the fastest team time in program history, placing fifth out of 20 teams in the competition. The Eagles finished with a total team time of 2:08:13, which was nearly two minutes faster than the previous best, or around 21 seconds faster per runner. In addition, the top five Biola finishers placed within 27 seconds of each other near the top of the pack.
Freshman
Kevin Horchler led the way for Biola with a time of 25:20, finishing 35th in the race of over 250 runners. Sophomore
Danny Ledesma (25:38) finished in 50th place overall, followed by junior Collin Christiansen in 52nd (25:41), senior
Brian Aukshunas (25:45) in 56th and freshman
Andrew Daedler (25:47) in 58th place.
The 17th NAIA ranked men's team finished fifth among the four-year schools in the race and seventh overall. The Eagles placed ahead of No. 4 University of British Columbia and just behind a number of highly-ranked teams like No. 5 Concordia (Ore.) which won the race, No. 10 Lewis-Clark State (Idaho) which placed second and No. 8 Southern Oregon, which finished third.
The women's race featured nine NAIA ranked or receiving votes teams. The third-ranked Eagles finished third in the race behind two outstanding teams in No. 6 University of British Columbia and No. 5 Northwest Christian.
The women were led by senior
Nychele Fischetti, who finished ninth out of 223 runners with a time of 18:07. Freshman
Jessica Marquardt finished second for the Eagles and 17th overall in 18:25.89 while senior
Rachel Stump beat her personal best by over one minute to finish 32nd in 18:40.20. Rounding out the top five for the Eagles were
Alexandra Sciarra (18:47.15) in 36th place with
Chelsea Janzen (18:47.72) placing 38th.
Both the men's and women's teams take a break as they prepare to host the Biola University Invitational, held Saturday, October 22nd at Irvine Regional Park in Orange.
