OAKLAND, Calif. --- After spending just over six hours on a bus in transit to Northern California the Biola Swim and Dive team swam part one of its two-part Bay Area trip on Friday afternoon and experience two dual meet victories.
 
The women's contingent got wins over Mills College (156-40) and College of Idaho (106-98), while the men's team lost its dual meet to College of Idaho (72-130).
 
This was the first dual-style meet of the season for Biola Swim & Dive after the season-opening PCSC meets.
 
"I felt like our team had a really solid meet today," said Head Coach Eddie Shepard. "It is always hard to perform on a travel day, and we were facing some really solid competition, but our team stepped it up."
 
Among those who stepped it up is sophomore Victoria Dunbar. She earned a national qualifying time with her third-place finish in the 200-freestyle (2:00.82). She, Haley Baker and Brooke Fettig each finished inside the top-6 as Biola dominated that event.
 
There were winning individual finishes from members of both teams, with Abby Blake and Chad LeJeune standing out with two individual wins each. LeJeune claimed first in the 100-backstroke (:55.48) and the 100-breaststroke (1:01.02), while Blake took the top spot in the 1,000-freestyle (10:48.18) and 500-freestyle (5:14.75).
 
Blake wasn't the only distance swimmer to standout during this meet as freshman Noah Reed took first overall in the men's 1,000-freestyle (10:35.18). Also of note, he won the cannonball contest before the meet.
 
Christina Ali and Lisa Tixier rounded out the individual wins on the women's side by taking first in the 100-breaststroke and 100-freestyle, respectively. Each were also a part of Biola's victorious 200-medley relay team. Sophia Dammann and Angela Kirschner joined forces with them to post the winning time of 1:52.90.
 
"It was a meet where every point counted," said Shepard. "We did not win because we won a lot of events, but instead every one of our women did what they needed to in order to get us the points we needed to win."
 
Biola completes its competition in the Bay Area with tomorrow's Bay Area Invite hosted by Mills College. The meet features UC Santa Cruz, Mills, CSU East Bay and the College of Idaho.