LA MIRADA, Calif. --- Just a few years ago, the Biola cross country team was without a home meet. This year, the Eagles host a pair of home meets including the premier NAIA meet on the west coast and the GSAC Championship race, highlighting a challanging 2012 schedule announced by Head Coach Jonathan Zimmerman on Thursday.

The Eagles open the season at the University of Redlands Invitational on Sept. 1. Biola has dominated the meet, which features shorter distances of 4.5K for the women and 6K for the men.

Biola takes on tough competition from the NCAA Division I ranks in its next two races, running at the ASICS/UC Irvine Invitational on Sept. 8 with the women traveling to San Diego for the SDSU Aztec Invitational on Sept. 15. The Biola women won the Aztec Invitational last year and placed third the year before.

New to the schedule this year is The Mustang Challenge race, hosted by The Master's College on Sept. 22.

The Eagles hit the road for a tough race on Oct. 6, taking part in the Souther Utah University Color Country Invitational. The meet is run at the Cedar City Colf Course at an elevation of 5,800 feet.

Biola returns to SoCal for the Vanguard Invitational at Fairvew Park in Costa Mesa on Oct. 13, then hosts its next two meets.

On Oct. 20, Biola hosts its annual home meet at Irvine Regional Park which has been renamed to the NAIA West Coast Jamboree. It has featured some of the top NAIA competition on the west coast over the last three years and this year is expected to be no different. The men's 8K race starts off the day at 8:30 a.m. with the women's 5K race beginning at 9:15 a.m.

The Eagles are once again at Irvine Regional Park on Nov. 3 for the 2012 GSAC Championship race, hosted by Biola. The women begin the day with a 5K race at 9:00 am with the men's 8K at 10:00 a.m.

The season wraps up with what both teams hope is a return trip to the NAIA National Championship race on Nov. 17 at The Fort Vancouver Historical Site in Vancouver, Washington.

Biola's men's and women's teams earned trips to the NAIA National race last season for the first time in recent memory. For the women's team, it was its fourth-straight trip and resulted in a 12th place finish while the men finished 26th overall.