LA MIRADA, Calif. --- The 2019 Track & Field season finally got underway Saturday with the Eagles hosting La Verne at Al Barbour Field for a short-format head-to-head dual meet.

Both the men and women's teams earned convincing victories to begin the season on the right foot. The men handed the Leopards a 74-51 defeat, while the women managed a bigger win to the tone of 87-33.

"I thought the meet went really well today," said Head Coach Sean Henning. "It was good to compete against someone other than ourselves. Both teams won which was great. We did a good job of adopting with the weather."

Conditions were less than ideal for the field events with Biola's throws facility still really muddy from recent rain and the Eagles' jumps pit too saturated, forcing a move to La Mirada High School for jumps.

"The athletes took it in stride," said Henning.

The tone was set early on for this BU team as Ryan Thompson went out and won big in the 3,000m. It was his first meet back after missing the cross country season. He ran 8:42.42 to win by nine seconds.

The Eagles' swept the 3,000m (and four other running events) when Micaela Pulliam ran 10:41.83 to claim the women's title.

"Ryan Thompson did a fantastic job in the 3K and literally lead from wire to wire," said Henning. "Micaela Pulliam did a great job competing the last couple of laps and coming out with the win. That was great to see."

One of the other sweeps came in the 60m hurdles where Nathaniel Belden missed the school record by just .01 seconds. He went :08.47 to win the event. Corry Williams took second with a :08.58.

On the women's side Sarah Ann Frank took home the win in her first event at Biola. She completed the 60m in :09.33 to edge out the La Verne runner.

Belden was a standout throughout the day. The multi-event athlete also won the pole vault (3.95m), finished second in the shot put (12.29m) and third in the discus (31.85m).

Anna Maumalanga began the year with a big effort once again. She broke her own school record in the discus with a toss of 44.36m. She also won the shot put with a throw of 10.82m.

"Look for her to do big things this year," said Henning. "I was also really pleased with our coaching staff and how hard they worked to make sure everything ran smoothly this morning and the athletes were well prepared. A lot of thanks goes to them for what they do for the program."

Biola also won both relays at the end of the day. A relay of around ~1,480m that's 4 x 1 lap around the Eagles' short track.

The Eagles begin the heavier portion of their competition schedule on March second at the Beach Opener hosted by CSU Long Beach.