PLACENTIA, Calif. --- Tonight was the Biola Eagles' final meet before they soar off to the PacWest Championships on Nov. 2 in Fresno, California. The men capped off the regular season with a win at tonight's Titan Invite, while the women ran a close race alongside Oklahoma Baptist and finished in second place.

"I was anxious going into the race after last week," said sophomore Kaitlyn Natividad. "But knowing that we were going to approach this race together I knew that I had the support of my teammates and the opportunity to build my confidence."

Natividad ended as the Eagles' fourth finisher in a tight pack that saw five ladies finish in the Top-35 at this race. The men's pack mentality saw them have six guys place in the top-35.

"Going into the race today, coach wanted us to work together in groups in order to boost our confidence and practice for conference in two weeks," said Natividad. "In preparation for the race we planned on using this strategy to work together."

Mackenna Mason finished in 10th place, running an 18:20.15 to lead the Eagles' effort. Finishing behind her was Emily Ransom, placing 14th at 18:30.79; Clara Haynes in 17th at 18:44.14; Natividad ran a 19:02.09 to finish 26th and Kaili Waller finished 34th with a 19:25.65.

"We had some goals coming into this race. First, we wanted to go out conservatively, work on pack running, and run an even race," said Head Coach Sean Henning. "I think we did a really good job of going out conservatively, but struggled to commit to each other the second half of the race. We also need to work on competing well at the end. I was proud of the girls for dealing with the weather and taking care of themselves."

Gabe Plendcio led a pack of six runners to their top-35 finishes. Plendcio placed 10th with a 24:57.96. Following behind him in 13th place was Angel Escobar who ran a 25:30.52; Jared Donnel in 31st at 26:05.84; fellow freshman Brady DeHaven in 33rd at 26:07.63; and finally Christian Perez in 34th at 26:08.20 and Ryan St. Pierre in 35th place at 26:10.11.

"As a whole, the guys who were focusing on a hard effort did a really good job of staying together and committing to each other," said Henning. "They also ran very even and didn't get caught up in the competitiveness of the race, which may sound odd but is what we wanted. We are coming off of a hard race six days ago and just wanted to mimic a hard lactate threshold workout for most."

A few highlights from the night include three personal records from the team. These include Emily Ransom, with another stellar performance, in addition to Taylor Lawsen, running her season's best tonight with a time of 20:33.16. In addition, Omar Ledezma hit a season PR!

"I wasn't even paying attention to the team scores, but it was neat to see that our women finished second and our men won the meet while they were running controlled efforts. It's a testament to their fitness right now," said Henning.

The Eagles will have two more weeks of training to prep for a heavily anticipated PacWest Championship meet up at Fresno Pacific on Friday, Nov. 2. All eyes will be on BU as both teams were picked to win the conference titles in the preseason poll.