ROMEOVILLE, Ill. --- Biola Women's Cross Country took to the midwest in an effort to move back up into the regional and national rankings with a good showing. Paced by Mackenna Mason's 29th-place effort the Eagles managed to do just that.

Head Coach Sean Henning's team placed 14th of the 36 teams to complete the event, including finishing ahead of four teams who are regionally or nationally ranked. Biola finished behind two ranked teams from the west, CSU San Marcos (10th) and Simon Fraser (8th).

"The women did well today," said Henning. "We missed some opportunities that were there for the taking, but given the circumstances of the course I think they did well."

The course ran relatively slow with all seven ladies running around a one to two minutes slower than their season-best 6ks. 

Mason's 29th-place finish came courtesy a 23:26.3, which is well off the 21:55.1 she ran at the Capital Cross Challenge. But she was right there in the mix to earn a top-30 finish in a field with over 250 runners.

Grace Catena was once again runner number two for BU. She crossed the finish at 23:50 on the dot to place 55th. Every other Biola runner finished within 24 seconds of one another, led by Siena Stacy's 24:34.1 and capped by Kaili Waller's 24:58.7. Clara Haynes was right there on Stacy's heels as the pair finished 102nd and 103rd with Haynes' 24:34.2. Sandwiched in the middle of the group was Kaitlyn Natividad who went 24:52.8 to earn a 135th-place finish.

As expected, Grand Valley State took the team title. The No. 2 Lakers had just 32 points on the day, with four of their runners in the top-10, including the individual champion Allie Ludge (22:12.1).

VANGUARD INVITATIONAL

Biola also sent a group of runners to the 29th-annual Vanguard Invitational. The men's team placed 10th in the 8k race, led by Nic Nelson once again. Nelson turned in a 26:37 to finish 37th overall. 

Connor Bramel set a new season-best by the slimmest of margins as the second men's finisher in that race. He went 26:43.1 to finish 40th overall. His previous season-best - a 26:43.2.

On the women's side the Eagles managed a top-5 finish paced by Caroline Stetina and a bunch of new 5k season-bests. Biola was fifth in a field of 13 teams and beat former Golden State Athletic Conference rivals The Master's by over 20 points.

Stetina (19:07.1), Haleigh Guerrero (19:24.5) and Crystal Jardines (20:12.1) all set new top 5k times in the race. Jardines' new mark was almost as close to her old mark as Bramel's improvement as she topped the old best time by just over one second.

Stetina, Guerrero, Shannon Howell (19:35.8) and Faith Grisham (19:50.3) all earned top-50 individual finishes.