Eagles beat out UCLA, USC, UNLV and SDSU at meet

The competition was hot for the Biola women’s cross country team as they raced against a predominately Division I field at the San Diego State University Aztec Invitational held on Saturday, Sept. 17 in Balboa Park.

Senior Nychele Fischetti set the tone for her team by placing third in the overall race. With seven Biola women placing in the top 16, the Eagles were able to score a total of 44 points — beating out heavy contenders including the University of California Los Angeles, University of Southern California, University of Nevada Las Vegas and San Diego State University to claim first place at the meet.

“Finishing [the] race and turning around to see all of my teammates in a row right there with me was really exciting,” Fischetti said. “As a team, our goal is to close the gaps in between each of our runners and we accomplished that again this weekend.”

Fischetti leads Biola runners with first place finish

Fischetti was Biola’s highest finisher with a time of 18:36.4, coming in only 15 seconds behind the winner of the event from San Diego State. Freshman Jessica Marquardt placed sixth in the field in 18:55.6 and senior Carissa Bowman finished 10th with a time of 19:07.3.

The San Diego State Invitational is held every year at Balboa Park and features a physically demanding course. The course contains a lot of downhill and uphill variations.

“The course was more of a challenging one,” Fischetti said. “Therefore, getting a better team score and shortening our gaps was quite an accomplishment.”

But with the team’s strategy of maintaining their “three Ps” they will have no problem carrying that success into their league meets.

“[Our strategy consists of] poise in the first mile, to get out fast but not overdo it,” Fischetti said. “Purpose in the second mile, to make it up the hills; and passion in the third mile to finish strong, even when we are tired.”

High national ranking prompts high expectations

The Biola women ranked third overall in the latest National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics national coaches poll, and plan to carry out the success at their next invitational on Saturday, Oct. 1 at Willamette University.