For the second year in a row, Point Park’s competitive dance team placed among the top ten teams in the country at the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) Competitive Dance National Championships.

On Feb. 23, the Pioneers placed second at the Northeast Regional Qualifier and later received an at-large bid to the national competition.

The Pioneers placed eighth in the nation out of the 12 teams in attendance at the contest in Davenport, Iowa last weekend. Midland (Nebraska) placed first with 86.35 points and host and defending champion St. Ambrose (Iowa) finished second with 85.46 points. Midland has now won two national titles in three years.

The third best team recorded nearly 10 points less than the top two scoring teams. Oklahoma City, Baker (Kansas) and Siena Heights (Michigan) placed fifth, sixth and seventh respectively, and all finished within less a single point of one another.

Point Park then fell into the ranks at eighth with a score of 70.61 after their second complete national showing. The Pioneers bettered their performance from the preliminary round in which they sat at ninth place with a score 68.91.

The final score considered both performances with a heavier weight on the final round. The preliminary round score accounted for 25 percent of the final score, and the final-round score accounted for 75 percent.

Last season, the Pioneers placed fourth in the nation at their first-ever national showing with a score of 85.42.

The Pioneers finished this season with 12 events, the highest amount in the NAIA. No other team in the NAIA even amounted double digits for event performances. Of the 41 teams in the NAIA, Point Park sits seventh with an average of 80.51 points per event.

Next season should maintain much of the talent from this season as the All-American athletes are freshmen, sophomores and juniors.