SAN DIEGO, Calif. — Biola's women captured the 2026 PacWest Conference team title and four Eagles rewrote the program record book on Saturday at Point Loma Nazarene University, where the closing day of the conference championships produced eight Biola event wins and four school records inside a few historic hours.

The Biola women totaled 195 points across the championship meet to win the conference title ahead of Azusa Pacific (160) and Fresno Pacific (152). The men finished third with 154 points behind Fresno Pacific (265) and Azusa Pacific (158). The victory is Biola Track & Field's first conference title since the women's team won the Golden State Athletic Conference back in 2016.

"The women did a great job the last two days," stated head coach Sean Henning. "We were so on point across so many events, it was great to see everyone step up and carry some of the load. All event areas contributed to this win, showing a great well-rounded and deep team."

"We have been building this thing for a while now," continued Henning. "My goal was always to build a sustainable program, not just a one and done program that would fall apart once a few people left. I think we've done a good job of that. I feel confident that this team is built to be good for a long time, and we will keep doing the work to continue to sustain a great product and healthy team culture."

"Most importantly, we've never lost sight of the fact that the Lord has blessed us with unique talents and abilities, and the opportunity to be in this sport, so it's our job to utilize that well and give our best in what we do so that God will be glorified through those abilities," stated Henning.

"I'm very proud of the men for continuing to fight the entire day," concluded Henning. "We had a couple things go wrong, and it would have been easy to lose momentum, but they stayed positive and kept battling. Third is the highest we've ever finished, and while it would have been cool to beat APU in our last time, seeing them in conference, losing to them by four isn't too shabby."

Eboselulu Omofoma broke two school records on her way to two event wins and a pair of other podium finishes. She lowered the women's 100-meter hurdles mark to 13.74 — 0.08 below her own 13.82 set at Long Beach in April. Omofoma won that event as Biola took two of the top-3 spots on the podium (Hannah Hanson). Hanson also scored for Biola with a sixth-place finish in the 400m hurdles (1:02.79).

The Biola Athletics Female Student-Athlete of the Year added a school record of 12.20m in the triple jump that bettered coach Rebreka Preston's 12.17m mark from March 2023. Omofoma finished second in that event and third in the long jump (5.59m). 

Omofoma also won the women's 400-meter hurdles in 59.58, an NCAA Division II qualifying mark and her best time of the season.

On the men's side, Joshua Widdows matched Omofoma's record-breaking pace, lowering both his own school records in the men's 110-meter hurdles and 400-meter hurdles. He won the finals of both events, despite trailing after the prelims.

Widdows clocked 13.98 to win the 110H — bettering the 14.12 he ran at the Rossi Relays on February 28 — and ran 50.92 to win the 400H, slicing 0.09 off his 51.01 from the Stanford Invitational on April 4.

Senior Bethany Mapes, a Dr. Dave Holmquist Career Achievement Award winner, captured a distance double, winning the women's 1,500m in 4:32.65 and the 5,000m in 17:19.28. Senior Hailey Wurzbach added a third-place 1,500m (4:34.20) and a runner-up 5,000m (17:20.69) behind Mapes for two more podium hauls.

Madison Ebright (17:29.88, fourth) and Claire Lesiw (17:31.87, fifth) joined them in the 5,000 to give Biola four of the top five finishers in the event. That particular event is the one that saw a huge point swing to take a modest Biola team lead to a large gap.

Grant Miller won the men's 1,500m in 3:50.19, edging the field by less than a hundredth of a second. He battled head-to-head with Fresno Pacific sophomore Monte Moore in an instant classic. Ultimately, it was Miller, Biola's Athletics' Male Newcomer of the Year who took the win and 10 points for his team.

Donovan Tommy claimed the coveted men's 100-meter title in 10.51 ahead of teammate Tyler Poltl, who took second in 10.63, with Matthew Kaloustian fourth at 10.67. Kaloustian then turned in second in the men's 200m at 21.33, with Tommy fifth in 21.61.

Elizabeth Kurtz added a women's 800-meter title in 2:12.53 to go with her third-place steeplechase finish from Friday — a 16-point championship for the freshman across two of the meet's middle-distance disciplines.

More podiums and more points came for Biola in its relays. The women's 4x100 took third in 47.03. Biola's men's 4x400 of Richie Nawa'akoa, Jack Sapyta, Brayden Watson, and Widdows finished second in 3:14.84, and the women's 4x400 placed third in 3:50.04 to close the meet.

In the field, Robby Porter cleared 2.04m for second in the men's high jump, while Carlota Romay Rega — having completed Day two of the heptathlon earlier in the day — placed second in the open women's high jump at 1.65m. Laura Brennan threw 13.32m for fourth in the women's shot put, and Kaiden Gonzales reached 15.36m for fourth in the men's shot put. Gonzales also helped with a sixth-place finish in the discus.

The combined-events meets closed Saturday. Romay Rega finished ninth in the women's heptathlon at 4,119 points. In the men's decathlon, Jack Carlson placed seventh at 5,769 points and Gabriel Da Silva eighth at 5,115, both scoring for Biola.

Melt von Molendorff, Biola's Male Student-Athlete of the Year, returned to the track on the closing day for fourth in the men's 5,000m in 15:06.60 after his 10,000m victory Friday.

One hundred and thirty-three of Biola's 195 women's points and 114 of the men's 154 were earned on this day, constituting the bulk of both sides' team-scoring totals on the meet's most important day.

Biola's men ended with four of the meet's top-18 individual scorers. Widdows led the effort for the Eagles with 22 points scored. Von Molendorff, Tommy and Kaloustian also finished top-20 in scoring.

On the women's side, Omofoma was the clear MVP of the meet. She led all female athletes by scoring 34 points across four individual events. Mapes added 20 points, Hope Willis had 17 and Kurtz, Ebright and Wurzbach rounded things out to give Biola six women in the top-16 in scoring.

For the meet, Biola finished tied with Fresno Pacific for the most total event wins (12) combined between the men and women's teams. The Eagles had 27 total podium finishes, including six events with more than one Biola Eagle on the podium. 

Up next for Biola is a trio of last-chance meets in advance of the season's ultimate prize, the NCAA Division II Outdoor Track & Field Championships. The NCAA meet takes place in Indianapolis May 21-23.