MALIBU, Calif. --- The Biola Swimming and Diving teams delivered strong performances in the final day of Pepperdine's two-day Rodionoff Invite.

Biola's women brought home a victory, finishing first of four Division II teams. The Eagles trailed CUI after the meet's first day (36-35) but would finish ahead of them 312-277 after the second day. Azusa Pacific was third with a score of 215 and Westmont College was fourth (43).

The Eagles' men were competing against Concordia and ended up falling 424-297 to the Golden Eagles.

 "It was a great to have another amazing weekend of racing from our men's and women's programs," exclaimed head coach Nate Harding. "It's fun to watch both programs respond so well to back-to-back 2-day race weekends. I would argue that even though today was the last day of the two weekend stretch, it was our strongest day of competition! That sets us up well for October training!"

Harding added, "I'm also very proud of our dive crew for their strong performances on the boards."

Biola's divers ruled the pool in day two. Lorelei Carney and Abby DePina led the five other divers in the women's 1M diving event. Carney edged her fellow Eagle by just three points for the first place title. 

Caleb Pook and Sebastian Burgos faced off in the 3-meter dive, with CUI not entering any divers. Pook took first place, outscoring Burgos by 59 points.

Biola's swimmers went on to collect 19 podium finishes, 12 from the men and seven from the women.

Biola's men were led by Jacob Haaksma, Alejandro Marchesini, and Nathan Griffin. The three tied for the most first-place finishes, each recording two.

Haaksma was Biola's first swimmer to score gold, winning the 400 IM with a time of 4:10.73. He also contributed to a victory in the 200 medley relay alongside Griffin, Andrew Hanson and Marchesini. Later Marchesini would win the 200 freestyle with a time of 1:44.70 which was his second gold of the day. Griffin secured his second victory in the 100 backstroke.

Biola was in control of the men's 100 backstroke as they swept the podium. Griffin and Marchesini finished within seconds of each other for first and second place and Monrean came in just two seconds later to secure the BU podium sweep. 

The Eagles' women were led by Rachel Munch who earned three podium finishes, two in individual events and one in a relay.

Munch secured gold in the 200 breaststroke (2:29.79), bronze in the 200 freestyle and was the leadoff swimmer in the 400 freestyle relay where the Eagles earned silver.

The Biola Eagles will be in Long Beach on Saturday, Oct. 19, for the MPSF Open Water Meet.