IRVINE, Calif.---For the second consecutive week the men's and women's cross country teams earned PacWest Team of the Week and Melt von Molendorff was the PacWest's Runner of the Week.

Biola's men finished sixth at the UC Riverside Invitational behind five Division I teams. The Eagles scored better than eight D-I teams and were over 100 points better than the nearest Division II squad. Ranked fifth in the west region coming into the week, Biola finished ahead of two squads that were ranked ahead of them in that listing (Cal Poly Pomona and Azusa Pacific). In this week's regional rankings, the Eagles' men were ranked third in the West Region.

"The men's team did a great job executing their race plan," explained head coach Sean Henning. "The goal was to get out assertively, settle into the position, and run fearlessly the back half of the race. We started in sixth place with 225 points at two kilometers, and we finished the race in sixth place with 222 points. That's really good racing in my opinion. We have work to do now as this crew won't race for three weeks. We need to get the whole crew back as we held out two due to sickness, and we will continue to push ourselves in an intelligent way with the goal of honoring the Lord in what we are doing."

 In addition to von Molendorff's quick time of 23:51, Rouxan le Roux clocked 24:00 for 26th place, second among Division II runners. Jacob Shirota (24:24), Aidan Tomasini (24:25) and Charlie Bailey (24:33) rounded out Biola's top five.

Von Molendorff led Biola for the second week in a row to earn Runner of the Week. The senior from South Africa finished 18th in a loaded field of runners from every collegiate level with a time of 23:51 on the 8K course. That bettered his time from the previous week (24:39) when he finished second at the Biola Invitational and was a career-best time for the senior at that distance. Seventeen Division I runners crossed the line directly in front of von Molendorff, two of them with virtually the same time. The race was won by Zouhair Redouane (23:33) from California Baptist.

"I'm very happy for Melt," stated Henning. "He did a great job executing a smart race plan on Saturday. He put himself in a good spot and methodically moved his way up throughout the race. Breaking 24 minutes is always a pretty cool feat, but more important to me is how he is learning race very intelligently. This will really help him throughout the rest of the season."

Biola's women finished well ahead of two fellow PacWest teams and 12 Division I squads to claim fifth at the UC Riverside Invitational. Bethany Mapes finished eighth to lead the Eagles with a quick time of 20:13.8, a 37-second improvement from her previous 6K best. Lynette Ruiz was 23rd of 223 runners (20:30.9), giving the Eagles two of the three top PacWest runners in the race. Ruiz's time was significantly better than her previous career best at that distance (21:12). Aislin Taylor (21:09), Jaina Kang (21:18) and Hailey Wurzbach (21:19) rounded out the Eagles' top five.

"The ladies raced very well last weekend," said Henning. "Bethany had herself a breakout performance, getting close to the 20 minute barrier in the 6K is really difficult to do. What was more impressive is the way in which she raced, moving up the entire race. Lynette, Aislin, Jaina, and Hailey also held it down for the team, rounding out our scoring and putting us in a great position as a team. We have some work to do with rounding out the back end of our lineup, but I'm confident in those ladies and know they can close the gap to give us an even better and more complete team. Now we get back to work and get ready for Lewis Crossover in three weeks for this crew, Master's Invite for the rest of our crew."

The Eagles compete next on Saturday, October 5th at The Master's Invitational.