LA MIRADA, Calif. --- The No. 3 Biola women's cross country team will send its conference champion and five all-conference runners to Lawrence, Kansas to compete at the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics championship.
 
The meet features 327 runners from a total of 95 schools. The pack will run the 5-kilometer race at Rim Rock Farm, a first-time NAIA championship site. Biola is one of 32 team qualifiers after earning an automatic bid by winning their second straight Golden State Athletic Conference championship. The other spots are made up of 103 individual qualifiers.
 
There is also a men's race on Saturday, one in which Danny Ledesma will represent Biola as an individual qualifier.
 
Kellian Hunt will lead the Eagles' title push, returning as an All-American and fresh off a dominating 17:27 championship run at the GSAC Championships. She placed 15^th at the national championship meet last season, running an 18:20. All of her times this season have been under or right at her 15^th place time from a season ago.
 
Hunt has been the Eagles' strongest runner throughout the season, but Biola has also gotten big runs by Carrie Soholt, Lyndee Dawson, Chelsea Janzen and Anika Gasner. All of them received All-GSAC nods this season. Janzen and Hunt are the only two of those five that ran at last season's NAIA championship, Janzen placed 137^th.
 
After a 10^th place finish at last season's national championship the Eagles entered the season ranked No. 12 in the NAIA, but very quickly rose up the national rankings as they raked in meet wins at Redlands and California Baptist. In the second poll of the season Biola jumped to No. 5.
 
As they continued the season, they won every meet they entered, outside of a second place finish at the San Diego State Aztec Invite, a meet that was won by the University of Arkansas, who took all of the top eight individual spots.
 
Biola now sits at No. 3 in the nation, just behind No. 1 British Columbia and No. 2 College of Idaho who went one and two at last year's national championship.
 
The women's race in Kansas begins at 9:30 a.m. Saturday Nov. 23, with Ledesma's run beginning at 8:30 a.m.