Northampton, Mass. – Running in a field that included several New England Women's And Men's Athletic Conference teams, the Clark men's cross country squad turned in a sparkling third place finish at the annual Smith College Invitational on Saturday morning.

Paced by John Allard (Smithfield, R.I.) and his 15th place effort in a time of 29:34, the Cougars had three top 20 performances.

He was followed by Seamus O'Connor (Granby, Mass.) and Tim Conley (Walpole, Mass.), in 17th and 18th places respectively. O'Connor's time of 30:15 is a full six minutes faster that his time from his freshman campaign of 2012. Conley, meanwhile, was a little more than a second behind him at 30:16.

A pair of freshmen had excellent initial performances in their first 8K races. Ryan Van Dine (Bolton, Conn.) crossed the finish line in 23rd place, wrapping up the course in 30:46, just ahead of classmate Alex Hull (Mount Laurel, N.J.), who posted a 25th place finish in 30:59.

Clark will have next weekend off and won't return to racing until September 20 at the UMass-Dartmouth Invitational.