AZUSA, Calif. --- Biola Swim & Dive finished last year's head-to-head meet at Azusa Pacific down by 86 points to the older, deeper Cougars team. This year was an altogether different story though as Biola was just five points back of the Cougars, 105-100.

The Eagles set the tone early by taking the top-2 spots in the very first event, the 200-medley relay. Biola's 'A' relay team of Rebecca Brandt, Nicole Chang, Rachel Stinchcomb and Emily Silzel finished the race in 1:51.86 to beat the Biola 'B' team and APU's top team by about two seconds.

Biola got some extra points in the event thanks to the effort of Bethany Harper, Jenny London, Faith McAllister and Kasidee Pascoe, who edged the APU top team by .07 of a second.

The Eagles also took two of the top-3 spots in the second event, 1,000-freestyle. Katelyn Harper earned the Eagles' first individual win of the day with an 11:05.55. Annie Bristow went 11:13.82 to finish third.

Those first two events gave BU a 28-8 lead in the early going. Event three, the 200-freestyle, was one that made a big difference in the final outcome. Azusa Pacific's Riley Smith (1:56.42) found a way to barely out-touch Emily Silzel (1:56.46) to earn APU the five-point difference.

APU also won the next event, taking an additional 13 points, before Biola managed to go 1-2 in the 400-IM. Katelyn Harper won the race with a 4:45.85 and Kaylyn Schull came in second with a 4:57.13.

The Eagles also took two of the top-3 in the next event as Rachel Stinchcomb won the 200-butterfly with a 2:11.63 and Bristow and McAllister added five points by taking third and fourth in the event.

APU's best event of the day turned out to be the 100-freestyle, where they took all of the top-3 spots. Biola would bounce back immediately after with a strong showing in the 200-backstroke. It was another effort where BU took three of the top-4 spots, including a win from Nicole Chang. Chang went 2:10.38 to win by over three seconds.

The Cougars' Riley Smith continued to break the hearts of the Eagles in the 500-freestyle, where she led APU to 15 of the 19 possible points by getting the win with a 5:15.52.

That began a stretch of three consecutive event wins from APU in the final three events of the meet, including going 1-2 in the 400-freestyle relay with a big win.

Biola still made up well about 50 points from last year, including diving scores, and should be well on the way to finding a way to compete with its biggest rival later this year and in the year's to come.

The Eagles will compete next weekend at the SOKA Invitational.