LOS ANGELES, Calif. --- Once again having to battle less than ideal conditions the Biola Track & Field team competed in its third meet of the season on Saturday with the Occidental College Distance Carnival.

It was either overcast or raining from start to finish throughout the meet, but many Eagles still worked their way to strong showings, including a whole bunch of new career-bests.

"There were some good performances of today which is great despite the weather," said Head Coach Sean Henning.

The biggest events of the day were the respective 5,000m runs. The men's race had 229 runner, while the women's event was a field of 172. This makes sense from a meet known as the Distance Carnival.

The Eagles had strong showings in both the 5ks, led on the women's side by Emily Ransom and on the men's side by Gabe Plendcio. Ransom placed 24th overall with a new collegiate best time of 17:28. Plendcio claimed 35th in the men's race with a 15:00 flat to also set his new track best.

"I was definitely happy with the way Gabe raced and continue to improve as a competitor and not just someone chasing a time," said Henning. 

The Eagles did pick up an event win on the afternoon as they showed well in the women's 3,000m steeplechase. Stephanie Croy took home the victory in that race with a 10:57. She was just under a second shy of her collegiate best. The two other top Biolans in the event smashed their previous career-best. Hannah Hunsaker placed sixth with an 11:13 and Mandy Reyes finished eighth with an 11:30. Both time were more than 11 seconds improved on their previous top mark.

"The women steeplechase was really good as we had both Hannah and Stephanie hit national qualifiers and Mandy run a 15-second lifetime best," said Henning.

Aditya Lal had another strong performance for the men's team. He placed sixth in a deep field of 85 in the 800m with a time of 1:56.

While the distance runners shined late in the meet it was the sprinters that held it down for BU early in the program. The women's 4x100m relay team of Emily Heisinger, Carissa Kalpakjian, Paige LaBare and Sarah Rossiter placed fourth overall with a time of :48.83, and Heisinger and LaBare each managed top-10 finishes in their individual events.

Heisinger, a senior, managed a new top career mark in the 400m, finishing third overall with her time of :59.60. Rossiter also managed to put out a stellar performance in the long jump. She finished 10th and landed her best jump of the season at 5.03m.

Hannah Hubbard continued her strong string of performanced with a third-place finish in the triple jump. Her mark of 11.09m was just one hundredth of a meter off her season-best.

Biola had four other top-five finishes in the field events as Sarah Prustupa placed fifth in the pole vault (3.40m), Anna Maumalanga finished second in the discus (41.95m) and Ambernicole Hollinger was fourth in the shot put (12.03m) AND third in the hammer throw (45.23m).

The Eagles had two top-25 finishers in the men's 1,500m where Robbie Gleeson and Nic Nelson represented really well. Gleeson placed 18th with a 4:04 and Nelson was not right behind with a 4:05 to finish 24th.

"Robbie and Nick both ran solid in their respective races and competed well," said Henning. "All in all there was a lot of good today and we are looking forward to a weekend with no rain or we can really get after some bigger marks."

The Eagles enter week four of 10 consecutive weeks with a meet when they compete in the Ross & Sharon Irwin Invite at Point Loma next Saturday.