PITTSBURGH -- Point Park University men's cross country had a strong showing of third place out of 14 teams at the Carnegie Mellon University Invitational on Saturday from Schenley Park. The Pioneers were behind only host CMU -- which ran away with things with five runners in the Top 11 placements -- and also NCAA Division II California (Pa.). 

Point Park beat NCAA Division I Duquesne, which finished fourth, and also finished ahead of NCAA Division II schools Mercyhurst, Fairmont State and Glenville State. Point Park averaged 27 minutes, 10 seconds as a team over the five miles. 

"I was very happy with how the men competed today and responded from last week's race at Louisville," said Tim Creamer, Point Park head coach. "Today we looked more like ourselves out on the course and put ourselves in a position to run some of our fastest times of the season.

Point Park had four of its runners finish in the Top 25 of the 8,000-meter race. There were 90 runners in the race in all. Jannik Windelband paced the Pioneers running 26 minutes, 29 seconds for 12th place. Luke McKenna was directly after in 13th place with a time of 26:36. 

Also in the Top 25 for the Pioneers were Joshua Gosselin (27:18) and Elijah James (27:38) in 18th and 22nd place, respectivey. Point Park had all five of its scorers under 28 minutes with Jordan Kullen coming in at 27:56. That established a split of just 1 minutes, 27 seconds for the Pioneers' top-five performers. 

The Pioneers posted a split of 2:21 for their top seven with John Dyar running 28:00 for 33rd place and Gabe Ebersole posting 28:50 for 37th place. 

It was the first time all year the Pioneers ran two weeks in a row with last week at the Live in Lou Classic and this week on the home turf of Schenley Park. The Pioneers will now get two weeks off before the NAIA Great Lakes Challenge Oct. 21 in Grand Rapids, Mich. It's the final meet before the RSC Championships Nov. 4 at Midway (Ky.). 

"Today was another positive step or this team in reaching its goals," said Creamer.