Skip to navigation Skip to content Skip to footer
Allison Plassio cruises in to fifth place overall. (Photo by Aidan Ringiewicz).
Allison Plassio cruises in to fifth place overall. (Photo by Aidan Ringiewicz).
Posted: Oct 07, 2023

Point Park women's cross country takes 6th at CMU, Plassio leads the way 5th individually

Photos Results

PITTSBURGH -- Point Park University women's cross country came through with a sixth-place finish of 14 schools at the Carnegie Mellon University Invitational on Saturday. The Pioneers had three runners in the Top 25 finishers in the meet held at Schenley Park.

Senior Allison Plassio led the way with a career-best 5K running a time of 19 minutes, 16 seconds to place fifth overall individually. She was behind three NCAA Division II runners and a CMU alumni entry and came in with a pace of 6:12 per mile for just over three miles. 

The Pioneers were going up against some tough teams led by host CMU, which won easily with six runners in the Top 25. Next game NCAA Division I Duquesne in second place followed by NCAA DII schools California (Pa.) and Mercyhurst with the CMU Alumni in between. 

Point Park was next in sixth place averaging 21 minutes, 15 seconds as a team. The Pioneers came in with a comfortable lead on next schools Fairmont State and Glenville State, both from NCAA DII. 

"I couldn't be prouder of the efforts from our women who raced today," said Point Park head coach Tim Creamer. "We came into the race down a couple of women in our Top 5, but everyone who competed today stepped up and followed their race plans like we had hoped."

Point Park was without its usual No. 2 runner Jana Schmid and fellow top-5 contributor Karen Rios. Freshman Olivia Hare stepped up with a PR to run in the No. 2 spot for the Pioneers on Saturday. She had a time of 20:47 for 18th place. Sophia Lee-Hauser got into the Top 25 running 21:12 for 24th place. 

Kiyara Sawyers gave the Pioneers three runners under 22:00 posting a time of 21:54 for 36th place. Clark Atkinson stepped up into the scoring thanks to a PR of 23:06. That placed 49th out of the 77 runners there. Point Park's top seven included Amanda Lisotto (23:34) and Corinne Lee-Hauser (24:02) as well. 

"Today was a big step forward for the women's team almost back to full strength as we approach championship season," said Creamer.