SAN FRANCISCO ---  This afternoon, both Biola men's and women's cross country teams won the fight for first place at today's invitational, hosted by San Francisco State, at Speedway Meadow - Golden Gate Park.

This was the first time Biola has made an appearance at this race, and it's more than safe to say that it was certainly worth the trip up north! The Biola Eagles lived up to their first-place preseason billing by finishing first among PacWest teams on Friday.

After today's success, and growth as a team, one of the women's senior veteran captains shared her thoughts.

"I think the race went really well… we focused on strategy more today than working on our times, so, I think we ran a really smart race, so proud of that effort, and all the girls worked really hard to finish strong... glad that we stepped up," said Emily Ransom.

On the men's side, they have claimed two back-to-back first-place team finishes, and continue making their mark within the conference by aggressively working together as a unit. Today's top Biola male runner was Gabe Plendcio, securing second place with a season-best 25:16.

"All personal achievements aside, team comes first; really happy that we came out with the win, and that we're able to work well together," said Plendcio. "We beat the other top team in our conference, so that's obviously a high comin' off the race, but, we know we can't settle, and we know it's just one race, and come conference we'll just have to beat them again."

Regardless of the teams' overall golden finish, both held onto a solid strategy today, and funneled their energy into pack style racing. They took their focus off of their individual times, and worked well together as a team.

"[The men] did a good job competing as a group and not a bunch of individuals. We need to continue working together in the later stages of the race," said Head Coach Sean Henning. And on the women's side, "This team is still learning how to work as a group.. our pack running started to break up... but we had some girls step up and have breakout races today which was great to see."

Today was a great day for the Biola Eagles, as five females established new personal-records: fourth place, Clara Haynes - 22:27.6; 31st place, Shannon Howell - 23:58.5; 34th place, Micaela Pulliam - 24:05.5; 43rd place, McKenzie Elliott, 24:18.5; 58th place, Taylor Lawsen - 24:56.2. The men's side came through with three new PR's from the following individuals: sixth place, Jared Donnel - 25:33.1; 39th place, Luke Sutherland - 27:25.6; 70th place, Chris Campbell - 28:53.8.

Tune in for the Eagles' upcoming race, on Saturday, September 29th, at The Master's University Mustang Invitational, in Santa Clarita, California - Central Park.