WAIPAHU, Oahu--Biola had three runners in the top six to streak to the 2025 Pacific West Conference men's cross country title on Saturday morning at the Hawai`i Country Club.
The Eagles will have a new trophy for their case to go with the last championship that they won in 2022. The Eagles compiled 35 points, to outdistance runner-up
Fresno Pacific by 18 points (53).
Concordia was right behind the Sunbirds (57) and two-time defending champion
Azusa Pacific was fourth (72).
The group of four squads accounted for the top 19 spots in the race. Finishing behind the Cougars in fifth place was
Westmont (130),
Vanguard (179),
Dominican (202),
Hawaii Pacific (252),
Jessup (262) and
Chaminade (280).
Melt von Molendorff led the
Biola charge, running away with the race by 11 seconds over second place
Noah Plaza of
Concordia. von Molendorff, who finished third at the 2024 championships, blitzed to a time of 24:33.6 on the 8K course. Plaza ran by himself in second (24:44.4), ahead of teammate and third place finisher
Spencer Handorf (25:02). Rounding the top seven, which earned First Team All-PacWest honors, were
Azusa Pacific's Aaron Lakeman (25:07),
Biola's Marcin Stanglewicz (25:09) and
Luke Sanders of
Fresno Pacific (25:14).
"This was very satisfying to win our first team championship in three years," said von Molendorff, a senior, after the race. "It was great to finally do it in my final time. Third time is luck I guess."
Earning Second Team laurels were
Jonas Teeter of
Azusa Pacific (8th, 25:19),
Sawyer Pugliese of
Fresno Pacific (25:19),
Evan Torres of FPU (25:23),
Biola's Josh Klausmeier (25:28),
Rodney Chemalmal of FPU,
Jeremiah Echeverria of
Biola and
Dante Maldonado of
Concordia (25:39).
The Eagles had von Molendorff (first), Miller (fourth) and Stanglewicz (sixth) to account for three of the first half dozen places. Klausmeier was 11th and Echeverria 13th to account for the 35 Biola team points. Fresno Pacific (53) just clipped Concordia (57) for second place by placing three runners in the top ten. The Golden Eagles went 2-3 with Plaza and Handorf and placed Maldonado in 14th.
"I was very happy with the men's race," said Biola head coach
Sean Henning. "Melt has been working extremely hard and has had a great season thus far. All year we have been talking about staying patient until the last mile and today wasn't any different. Grateful for these guys and very proud of their ability to focus on running their best race, regardless of any other external factors."
FINAL RESULTS
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