Final NCAA Division III National Coaches Polls Announced

NEW ORLEANS—The season’s final polls are here, and atop both are the same pair of unanimous No. 1s we’ve had for the last six weeks: North Central (Ill.) for the men and Johns Hopkins for the women.

The poll, released Monday by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) only considered and ranked the 32 teams that qualified for nationals.

National Coaches Poll PDFs: Top 35 Summary | Week-by-Week 2014 | Week-by-Week All-Time
Regional Championships Central

Division III XC Polls/Rankings Central

Behind the rock-solid stability of NCC, the rest of the men’s top five was a completely new iteration.  For the third time this season, No. 2 St. Olaf and No. 3 UW-Eau Claire flip-flopped in the poll.  The Oles put four in the top five at Saturday’s Central Region meet.  Their 21 points was the lowest regional score in the nation for men or women.

NCAA Division III National Coaches Poll Top 5 – Men 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) North Central (Ill.) St. Olaf UW-Eau Claire UW-La Crosse Colby View Complete Men’s National Coaches Poll NCAA Division III National Coaches Poll Top 5 – Women 1) 2) 3) 4) 4) Johns Hopkins MIT St. Lawrence Middlebury SUNY Geneseo View Complete Women’s National Coaches Poll

UW-La Crosse moved up to No. 4 after finishing just two points behind Eau Claire in the Midwest.  With their qualifications this weekend, La Crosse and No. 29 Calvin join North Central and No. 22 Haverford in the 30 appearances at nationals club.

No. 5 Colby rose to its highest ranking ever (the USTFCCCA ranking archives only go back to 2006, but the Mules never qualified for nationals before 2013) after taking a surprising New England championship off of hosts and ninth-ranked Williams.

Another team made one of the biggest jumps of the week by auto-qualifying out of New England: No. 7 Amherst moved up seven spots after finishing just six points behind Colby.  (The Lord Jeffs beat No. 8 MIT by a single point)

The biggest mover in all of DIII this week was Mideast Region champion No. 15 Carnegie Mellon.  After soundly defeating No. 18 Widener—up to their highest rank ever—the Tartans moved up 11 places in the poll.

The biggest sliders were Haverford and Calvin, down nine and seven spots respectively after surprising fourth-place finishes at their regional meets.  Much of rest of the poll shifts were due to non-qualifiers being removed.   

Joining, or in some cases re-joining this week were No. 23 Mount Union, No. 28 Rose-Hulman, No. 31 Emory, and No. 32 Bridgewater (Va.).  Mount and RHIT were ranked on the strength of beating Calvin in the Great Lakes, and that’s the first-ever ranking for Rose-Hulman.  The somewhat oxymoronic Fightin’ Engineers did qualify for the second-ever Division III national meet in 1974.

Emory and Bridgewater were ranked after taking the first two places in the South/Southeast.

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As mentioned above, Johns Hopkins held down the top spot for the 16th straight week. Though the four teams directly after the Blue Jays have been the same since early October, their order changed again this week.  No. 2 MIT moved up and No. 4 Middlebury moved down after MIT’s 25-point win over the Panthers on Saturday.  The Engineers took over possession of the second slot from now-No. 3 St. Lawrence, and No. 4 SUNY-Geneseo tied with Middlebury in the poll.

Behind Hopkins, the second-most consistently ranked team in 2014’s polls has been No. 9 Willamette.  The Bearcats have been ranked exactly ninth since the October 15 poll.

The rest of the top fifteen was relatively placid: no one who stayed in the poll fell more than three places in it.  No. 16 Amherst’s five-spot rise was the largest in the women’s poll this week.  No. 26 Tufts and No. 29 Hope each climbed four ranks after grabbing the last qualifying spot out of New England and the Great Lakes, respectively.

For No. 19 North Central, it’s their highest ranking in eight years, though the Cardinals did finish 16th in the nation in 2011. 

Qualifiers who joined or re-joined the poll were No. 25 Wellesley, No. 27 Eau-Claire, No. 30 Ithaca, No. 31 Wartburg, and No. 32 Christopher Newport.  That’s the first time CNU has been ranked.

Every school in Saturday’s field has made it at least once this century except for Wellesley and Christopher Newport.  For the all-women’s college outside of Boston, it’s their first national appearance since 1986.  And for Christopher Newport, it’s their first-ever trip to the national championship.

These are the final cross country polls of 2014.

The NCAA Division III Cross Country Championships will be held November 22 in Mason, Ohio.