SOUTH GATE, Calif. --- A strong day of relays on Friday was followed up by an long, busy day of prelim and final competition on Saturday that saw Biola Swim & Dive get out to a remarkable first two days of the three-day Collegiate Winter Invite hosted by La Verne.
 
The Eagles sit third of seven teams on both the men and women's side following the conclusion of the first two days of competition. Biola will continue to compete at the meet on Sunday for the first time.
 
"We have had a really incredible start to the meet with so many of our swimmers swimming lifetime best swims," said Head Coach Eddie Shepard. "It has been exciting for the whole team to watch how successful our team has been up to this point. I was especially excited to see some of our senior swimmers break some barriers today that they have been trying to get through for some time now."
 
The meet began with eight events on Friday night. The Eagles had four top-four finishes in those first eight events including one relay victory.
 
Christina Ali, Abby Blake, Angela Kirschner and Lisa Tixier teamed up to swim a 7:48.79 in the 800-freestyle relay to earn a convincing seven-second victory over the first team from Azusa Pacific.
 
In addition to that relay Biola finished second in the women's 200-medley relay and fourth in the men's 800-freestyle relay.
 
The other highlight from Friday night came courtesy Kenny Alcosiba. He placed third overall in the 400-IM with a 4:15.47.
 
Saturday was a long day with prelims and finals for 16 different events. It was a long but very successful day as the Eagles got two more top-three relay finishes, six individual top-three finishes and eight new NAIA nationals cuts.
 
Daniel Vale, Dominique Kaijser and Jennifer Walker each got their first nationals cuts of the season on the second day of competition. Coincidentally enough all three hit the qualifying mark in the 100-butterfly.
 
Other new national cuts came from Michael Severi (200-freestyle), Haley Baker (200-freestyle), Sophia Dammann (200-IM), Abby Blake (200-IM) and Rebecca Brandt (50-freestyle).
 
A lot of swimmers set new personal-bests during the first two days of competition. Coach Shepard pointed out two swimmers in particular that achieved personal-bests in their fourth season at Biola. William Granberry swam a 1:50.69 in the 200-freestyle to get to 1:50 for the first time, and Alcosiba went 2:00.71 in the 200-IM for the first time.
 
Daniel Vale and Shane Brinson were the two other men to finish inside of the top-three. Vale swam a :52.05 in the 100-butterfly to finish third in the 18-man field. Brinson earned a score of 242.20 to place second in the 3-meter diving competition.
 
The individual top-three finishes on the women's side came from Tixier (3^rd - 100-breaststroke, 2^nd – 200-IM), Ali (1^st – 100-breaststroke) and Kirschner (3^rd – 50-freestyle).
 
The women's 100-breaststroke was a tight race between Tixier, Ali and a swimmer from Pomona-Pitzer. Ali took first by out-touching the Saghens' swimmer by 13-hundreths of a second. Tixier came in just over two seconds later to get two Eagles on the podium.
 
"It was very exciting to see Christina and Lisa go 1, 3 in the 100-breaststroke in a tough field of competition," said Shepard. "I am really excited to see how we finish things up tomorrow!"
 
Sunday's competition begins at 10:00 a.m. and goes all day similar to Saturday.