SUNNYVALE, Calif. --- Today's race atmosphere took off with a record-breaking presence, that inspired many individual and team PR's throughout the rest of the day. NCAA Division I and DII competition completely packed out the course at the Santa Clara Bronco Invitational at Baylands park in Sunnyvale, Calif. The Biola Eagles soared through a Men's 8K Invite and Open, along with a Women's 6K Invite and Open races.

Gabe Plendcio set a new school record finishing in the top-6 at 23:59.1, breaking the Biola school record held by his assistant coach, Kevin Horchler. In this same race, the men's team set an all new school team record time, coming in at 2:04.26, which averages out to 24:53.

However, Head Coach Sean Henning pointed out that the men didn't have the best start to the race.

"The guys did a poor job of finding each other early in the race and working together as they know they can, but did a great job of racing hard and fighting all the way even if they were stuck running by themselves," said Henning.

Four other men in this race each set new individual PR's: Brady DeHaven - 25:01.3; Ryan St. Pierre - 25:02.7; Angel Escobar - 25:11.2; and Jared Donnel - 25:11.7. Not to mention, in the men's open race, there were three more individual PR's to add to the success of the day. Nic Nelson had a breakout race, finishing at 25:39.0, along with Daniel Perez coming in at 27:04.9, and freshman Luke Sutherland at 26:48.7.

The women's side battled through some injuries and heat, but altogether pulled out eight new individual personal-records. During the women's open race, Emily Ransom led the way with a standout finish in the top-8, setting a new PR at 21:58.8.

Even though the girls weren't feeling their best, many of them ran their best, hitting the following new individual PR's, and finishing fourth place as a team in the open race. Biola had some strong individual showings as they placed well out of the 307 total entries.

Micaela Pulliam ran a 22:36.6 to finish 23rd. Kaili Waller's 22:49.9 was good enough for 31st. Newcomer Kenzie Elliott ran a 23:25.8 to finish 64th. The rest of the finishes follow:  72nd place, Shannon Howell - 23:30.3; 105th place, Melissa Ledesma - 23:58.8; and 145th place was Taylor Lawsen - 24:44.1. Clara Haynes worked hard, alongside Mackenna Mason, during the invitational race and logged a new PR for herself as well at 21:48.9.

"We have some big goals, we want to win conference, we want to go back to nationals and win nationals," said sophomore captain Ryan St. Pierre. "Really our end goal I'd say is to go to Division II Nationals next year... And we're realizing that that's not gonna happen unless we run as a pack, that's not gonna happen unless we work together. So today was awesome, we all ran really good times, we fought really hard individually, but we need to be working together!"

Looks like the Biola Eagles are heading in the right direction to meet those goals, and we'll look forward to seeing how they'll compete at their last regular season race next week on Oct. 20 at the Fullerton Titan Invitational.

"I really want to make sure we are running for the right reasons and seeking to give the best of our talents to God and our teammates every time we step out on the line. If we can do that, there's no doubt we will be the best team we can possibly be," said Henning.