PITTSBURGH -- Point Park University men's cross country earned a fifth-place finish of 12 teams on Saturday at the Carnegie Mellon Hampton Inn Pittsburgh/University Medical Center Invitational at Schenley Park. Xavier Stephens placed ninth overall of 110 runners, and Brody Carlin was 15th with a big personal-best time.
Stephens, a senior from Uniontown, Pa., notched his second Top 10 in three races by finishing the 8,000-meter race in a time of 26 minutes, 42 seconds. The winning times was 26:07 by Denison's Benjamin Foster. Stephens averaged a pace of 5:22 per mile to lead the Pioneers.
Carlin beat his previous PR by 15 seconds with a time of 26 minutes. 50 seconds. That was good for 15th place and made him one of the 20 runners to come in under 27 minutes.
Carnegie Mellon won the team title with 37 points. The Tartans had their five scorers all within the top 13 finishers. Denison was next with 87 points and with three runners in the Top 10. California (Pa.) (97 points) and IUP (114 points) were just ahead of Point Park with 120. The Pioneers beat Duquesne, which was right behind in sixth place with 141 points.
Doug Kostelansky was the third finisher for Point Park in 26th place. He had a time of 27:18. Bryan Gutierrez came in five seconds later at 27:23 for 30th place. Dylan Allen moved into the fifth scorer position for the Pioneers. He did so by knocking off more than one minute from his previous-best time at the Schenley Park course. Allen had a time of 28:18 for 40th place.
The Pioneers' top seven had Carlos Polanco (28:30) and John Zeigler (28:58) both within the top 50 and under 29 minutes.
There were a total of three River States Conference teams in the race with IU Kokomo placing eighth and Carlow there represented with individuals. The RSC Championships will be held at the same course and hosted by Carlow on Nov. 9.
Point Park has one more meet before the RSC Championships. In two weeks, they will go to the NAIA Great Lakes Challenge hosted by Aquinas (Mich.) College in Grand Rapids, Mich.
