LA MIRADA, Calif. --- Biola Cross Country continues to make a strong statement in the PacWest Conference early in the 2017 season. Biola's second week of competition earned the team three of the four individual conference runner of the week honors.
 
The men and women's team competed out at the UCR Invitational on Saturday and the efforts of Gabe Plendcio (men's runner of the week), Gio Orellana (men's freshman of the week) and Mackenna Mason (women's freshman of the week) were enough to earn them each awards.
 
It is Plendcio's first conference honor of the new season and the second for Orellana and Mason. Plendcio earned the award by pacing the Eagles' efforts at the UCR Invite. He finished the 8k in 25:04, setting a new individual season-best and a new best time by any Biola runner in 2017. Plendcio was 44^th overall in the men's 8k, but was the 23^rd fastest non-NCAA Division I runner in the group.
 
"We took an approach on Saturday where we would just go out a bit more conservative and work really well the last few miles. Gabe totally did that," said Head Coach Sean Henning. "From where Gabe started to where he finished was about 75 spots. He did a really good job of moving up throughout the race. He's in great shape right now and will keep getting fitter. I think he'll be a force to be reckoned with."
 
Orellana takes home the men's freshman of the week honor for the second week in a row. He improved his time from the season-opening Biola Invite and crossed the finish line this week after just 25:44. He's continued to be the fastest freshman on Biola's men's team and third-fastest overall behind Ryan Thompson and Plendcio.
 
"Gio is going to have a very good second half of the season for sure. We've held him back a little bit as far as training goes, but now we're going to be a little bit more aggressive," said Henning. "He's going to have a big breakthrough. He's very talented and is doing a great job of racing an 8k distance, which is hard for some freshman to adjust to."
 
Mason was the conference runner of the week last week and nearly earned herself a repeat with her performance this Saturday. She was less than a second behind this week's honoree (a runner from Fresno Pacific), but she was still far and away the fastest freshman. She completed a 6k in 21:17 to average five minute and 42 second miles. It was a four-second improvement in her average mile from last week's race.
 
"Mackenna just continues to impress me," said Henning. "She competed really well in her first 6k. The one PacWest runner who finished a half-second ahead of her was a junior college state champion last year. She fought really hard until the end and moved up well from mile one to mile two. She's going to continue to impress and show she's one of the best runners in the conference.
 
Biola Cross Country has this weekend off before competing in Santa Clarita the following weekend at the annual The Master's University Mustang Challenge.