SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Following its third-consecutive PacWest Championship and a strong showing at regionals, Head Coach Sean Henning's group had its third-straight opportunity to run at the national meet.

This year's meet was in Sacramento, marking Biola Women's Cross Country's first opportunity to run this course at nationals. The Eagles would run out to a 26th-place finish, tying their 2022 placement but dropping back some from last year.

Biola was running in 20th for the first third of the race, but then dropped back to the 26th-place finish. 

A very strong individual run from Lynette Ruiz saw her move up about 30 places from her 2023 finish. She crossed the line in 21:50.9 to finish 74th overall. She was without her running mate on this day as Bethany Mapes was unable to finish for BU. Mapes was a big missing piece, having placed inside the top-40 at the national meet last year. Mapes made it to the 3.8k mark before having to retire from the race.

Aislin Taylor did what she could to pick up some slack for Biola. The top-5 conference championship runner was the second Eagle across the line on Saturday, completing her 6k in 22:41.2 to place 154th overall. 

To round out the Biola scoring shortly after Biola came a trio of Eagles runners who finished in rapid succession. Karis Brown (22:55.1), Hailey Wurzbach (22:58.2) and Jaina Kang (23:01.2) were all within nine spots of one another with Brown and Kang having consistent, strong final split to maintain position.

Biola was the fifth-best west region team on this day. Just like on the men's side, Western Washington paced the women's west region teams. The Vikings finished 11th overall. Alaska Fairbanks, Chico State and Stanislaus State were the other west region teams to finish ahead of BU. Biola beat Fairbanks and Stanislaus handily at the regional meet.

Ellie Stetina finished out Biola's individual efforts. The junior ran 23:48.6 to be the sixth runner for the Eagles and place 220th in the field of 261.

Biola closes out its year hungry for more. 2025 marks a season of opportunity for this BU team as they will look to win a fourth-consecutive PacWest Championship.