SANTA BARBARA, Calif.---The 2024 PacWest Track & Field Championhips came to a close for the Biola track & field teams. The Eagles participated in 22 events in the final day, had six athletes earn All-PacWest honors and broke one school record.

"I was pleased with our performance this weekend," stated head coach Sean Henning. "The teams fought valiantly and I saw some incredible effort from a lot of our athletes. At this time of year, several athletes across the entire conference are either running on fumes, physically beat up, or exhausted from academics and finals. You never know how these meets will go because of this. I was impressed with some of our athletes dealing with one or a couple of these issues and STILL showing competitive greatness. What a joy that is to watch as a coach!"

Biola's men were in fourth place yesterday and ended up tied for third with CUI (107 points). Azusa Pacific was the team Champions (243) and Fresno Pacific took second place (182).

"To put it in perspective, we finished with 47.5 points last year and had an improvement of almost 60 points this year," commented Henning. "The men's program as a whole has done a great job of stepping up and being committed to building a championship program that honors Christ regardless of the results. This is a testament to my coaching staff doing a great job recruiting and building them up throughout the year and our leadership that sets the tone and leads by humility and servant-hood. They set the example of what we expect from the rest of the team."

The women finished fourth overall with 103 points. Ahead of BU's women were the Champions (Azusa Pacific, 218), second place CUI (185) and third place ART U (119).

"We knew we weren't going to have the same year we had last year (2nd in the conference with 155 points) due to some injuries, redshirts, etc, but we had a goal of competing for third," stated Henning. "Unfortunately the chips didn't land in our favor, but there are a lot of positives to take away from the weekend. The women's 4 x 400m relay had to race some incredible relay teams and were able to come away with a school record which was a great way to finish the day." 

Biola's second day All-PacWest athletes were Nina Navarrette, Robby Porter, Lynette Ruiz, Melt von Molendorff, Matthew Kaloustian and Maggie Williams.

Williams earned the Eagles' highest finish of the day, placing second in the 800m with a quick time of 2:11.15. Navarrette (triple jump, 11.02m), Porter (high jump, 1.97), Ruiz (5000m, 17:35.39), von Molendorff (5000m, 15:09.38) and Kaloustian (100m, 10.80) picked up third place finishes.

Ariana Quintana, Audrey Mousa, Hannah Hanson and Jaden Murray shattered the school record in the 4x400m relay. The Eagles' record-breaking time of 3:52.95 placed them sixth of six squads.

BU had their strongest group showings in the triple jump and 5000m run where three athletes earned points in both events.

Navarrette led the triple jump with her podium finish and Gillian Doplemore (5th, 10.32m) and Maria Vidal Poy (7th, 9.82m) collected points for Biola.

Ruiz paced the 5000m and Susi Bruennig (4th, 17:38.73) and Britta Holmberg (5th, 17:42.08) added points to the women's score.

Biola received points in 17 more events. Jack Sapyta earned an NCAA Provisional in the 400m dash with his personal best time of 47.61.

Kaloustian, Sapyta, Donovan Tommy, Joaquin Ramirez, Hannah Hanson and Stefan Jungmichel added points to Biola's score in multiple events. Kaloustian scored points in the most events. The Freshman led Biola with his contributions in the men's 4x400, 200 and 100m dashes.

"Men's sprints/hurdles as a whole has finally stepped up and realized the potential we have here, contributing big points for us," reflected Henning. "Additionally, despite a DQ in the men's 4 x 100, those guys didn't let it phase them and fought hard the rest of the day, a testament to their resiliency."

Jack Ferrence finished the decathlon in fourth place of six individuals with a personal best of 5968 points. Ferrence's highest finish on Saturday was third in the discus where he had a personal best throw of 36.34m. Additional Saturday events finishes were sixth in the javelin (31.40m), fifth in the 110m hurdles (16.95) and fourth in the 1500m (5:21.91) and pole vault (4.10m).

Henning concluded,"Both teams had a lot of success today and by God's grace we were able to compete well and represent the university, our families and most importantly the Lord well. We have work to do over the next two weeks as we seek to get some athletes qualified for nationals, but we were grateful for these two days."

Next up for Biola is the Titan Tune Up on Friday, May 3rd.