The men’s and women’s track teams had a strong showing in the Redlands Invitational on Friday.

For many of the Biolan competitors, the Redlands Invitational marked the start of the outdoor season. Many of the runners were coming back refreshed from a break prior to competing in the NAIA Indoor National meet.

Women find success in multiple events

Junior Alexandra Sciarra placed first in the 400 hurdles with a time of 1:05.06. Senior Lauren Houck secured first place in the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 15.26. Freshman Kate Smiley finished right behind Houck with a time of 16.34 to earn second place. Smiley also placed third in the 100-meter dash with a time of 12.81.

Juniors Jessica Airey and Chelsea Jansen took first and second place in the 800 with times of 2:28.26 and 2:28.80.

“Everyone is coming from different places in the season, some people are coming back from injuries and some people are getting over sickness,” Jansen said. “Despite the things that could’ve gotten in our way I think our overall performance was really good.”

Jansen had a strong first-place finish in the 1500-meter race with a time of 4:52.95. Senior Rachel Stump was close behind with a time of 4:58.03 to secure second place.

Junior Whitney Fredenburg took second in discus with her 32.36-meter throw. Fellow junior Megan Dwight placed third in the long jump with a jump of 5.04 meters. Dwight also secured second place in the triple jump with her jump of 9.78 meters.

Breakout performances from men

The men’s team had an impressive showing as well. Junior Danny Ledesma had a first-place finish in the 1500-meter race with a time of 4:04.55. In the 110-meter hurdles junior Marc Opena placed second with a time of 15.12.

“Some of us just came back from nationals and we had last week off," Opena said. “So since this is our first outdoor meet we had some adjusting to do since there are some slight differences between indoor and outdoor.”

Junior Jeff Tran placed third in the pole vault with a jump of 4.57. Fellow junior Peter Stacy secured first in the javelin with a throw of 57.12 meters.

Keeping the momentum going

The teams are looking forward to their next meet on Friday at University of California, Irvine.

“We were talking the other day about the level of competition that is going to be at UC Irvine,” Houck said. “I would love to see us rise to the occasion and compete with people that can push us and challenge us to run faster.”

Biola will be competing at the UC Irvine Spring Break Classic meet on Friday.