ALISO VIEJO, Calif. --- Biola was looking to rebound after what was an emotionally rigorous meet last week at Whittier, and its swimmers did just that at the 2014 SOKA Invitational. The men's team had a bunch of strong swims, garnering 357.0 points to finish second in the four-team field. The women were also fast, finishing with 277.0 points to place third of five teams.
 
Edward Campana paced the men's contingent with one relay and one individual first place and one relay and one individual second place. He was responsible for 29 of the Eagles' 357 points.
 
The Tixier sisters stepped out of the box a little bit by swimming some backstroke. Lisa Tixier swam in, and won the 100-backstroke, while Christine Tixier took the first-place finish in the 200-backstroke. Both became eligible to swim their respective events at the national championship meet, which they likely will not do.
 
"We had a really great meet today," said Head Coach Eddie Shepard. "I knew we were going to be swimming tired today because we have worked extremely hard over the past couple of weeks, but we talked about going into today's races with a confident mindset despite the fatigue."
 
Confidence was oozing all over as Biola got wins in eight of the 28 events on the docket. The Tixiers and Campana were directly responsible for five of those victories, with the others coming from Chad LeJeune and in two relays.
 
LeJeune earned 16 points for the men's team with his strong performance in the 100-breaststroke. He swam a 1:04.33 to get the win by :00.35 seconds.
 
In addition to the backstroke performances, Christine Tixier won the 200-butterfly and Lisa Tixier finished first in the 50-freestyle.
 
Campana's individual win came with a 2:03.20 in the 200-Individual Medley. It was :00.03 off his previous season-best in that event.
 
"There was a lot of very close swims today, and we came out ahead in almost all of them," said Shepard. "The most notable came at the end of the meet with the women's 400-freestyle relay."
 
This was a tight one as the Eagles' foursome of Megan Nerud, Angela Kirschner and the Tixiers combined to swim a 3:38.91 to edge out Azusa Pacific's 'A' relay by less than a second.
 
Lisa Tixier was the anchor of the relay, and she swam her 100 in :51.85, which is the new fastest relay split in program history. It powered the Eagles to a come-from-behind victory in a race that was tight a majority of the way.
 
The men's side was responsible for the other relay win, claiming first overall in the 200-medley relay. Campana, LeJeune, Charles Nanfria and Bretton Smith combined for a 1:41.81 to get a two-second victory over rival, Concordia.
 
Despite the fatigue, Biola saw a bunch of swimmers drop time from their previous season-bests this morning. Sixteen of its 29 participating swimmers dropped time in at least one of their events. Freshman Samantha Damman dropped time in each event she appeared in. Nanfria also had a strong day, coupling his performance in the relay with a 200-Individual Medley that was five seconds faster than his previous season-best (2:11.34).
 
"It was very exciting to see everyone swim those season-best times, because I know how tired everyone is right now," said Shepard.
 
This was Biola's final meet in a streak of five meets in six weeks. Now the team has time to train prior to its next event, the 2014 Winter Invitational, hosted by La Verne on Dec. 12-14.