Big Changes Shake Up The Division III National Coaches’ Poll

NEW ORLEANS – Did everyone catch their breath after this past weekend in NCAA Division III Cross Country? Good.

It was a whirlwind of action across the nation.

Want to know how intense it was? When the latest National Coaches’ Poll was released Wednesday by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCA), only 12 of the 70 teams that make up the men’s and women’s rankings remained in place from last week.

National PDFs: Week 6 Top 35 Summary | Week-by-Week 2015 | Week-by-Week All Time
Regional Rankings: Week 6 Summary | Week 6 Recap
Division III Rankings/Polls Homepage: Link

NCAA Division III National Coaches Poll Top 5 – Men 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) UW-Eau Claire Williams North Central (Ill.) St. Olaf Amherst View Complete Men’s National Coaches Poll   NCAA Division III National Coaches Poll Top 5 – Women 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) Johns Hopkins Williams MIT Tufts Washington (Mo.) View Complete Women’s National Coaches Poll

Two of those teams that stayed put were the top-ranked Johns Hopkins women and the top-ranked UW-Eau Claire men. While the Blue Jays rested their top runners this past weekend, the Blugolds dazzled with a 1-3-4 finish at the UW-Oshkosh AAE Invitational, which served as the Division III Pre-National Invitational.

Behind UW-Eau Claire, however, there is a new No. 2 team. Gone is Amherst College and in its place is Williams College, the team that beat the Lord Jeffs at the Little Three Championships last Saturday. Amherst tumbled behind No. 3 North Central (Ill.) and No. 4 St. Olaf College to No. 5 in this week’s poll.

The Williams College women are still No. 2 in the women’s poll and justifiably so after a dominant effort at the Little Three Championship (1-2-3-4-5-6). MIT (previous No. 4, now No. 3) and Tufts (previous No. 3, now No. 4) swapped spots behind the Ephs.

There are four total new additions to the top-10 of each poll as the St. Lawrence men moved up six spots from No. 13 to No. 10, the MIT men went from No. 12 to No. 10, the Willamette women went from No. 14 to No. 9 and the University of Chicago women jumped three spots (No. 13 to No. 10).

The UW-Stevens Point men had the biggest jump of the week, going from unranked – and not even receiving votes last week – into a tie for 11th. What led to the jump? Try a fourth-place team finish at the AAE Invitational. This is the Pointers’ highest ranking since they were seventh in Week 9 of 2010.

Not to be outdone, the TCNJ men rocketed from the Land of Receiving Votes to 18th and earned its best ranking since 2007.

There were three teams in total that jumped more than 10 spots – the Emory women (No. 27 to No. 14), the Keene State women (No. 31 to No. 15) and the Central (Iowa) men (No. 32 to No. 17).

Other than UW-Stevens Point and TCNJ, there are eight teams either new to the poll or returning to the poll after a brief absence. They are the NYU men (No. 21), the Elizabethtown men (No. 27), the Ramapo men (No. 30), the Oberlin men (No. 35), the Rochester (N.Y.) women (No. 25), the UW-Oshkosh women (No. 29), the TCNJ women (No. 34) and the Carnegie Mellon women (No. 35).

All of these teams have hopes of earning the right to compete at the NCAA Division III Cross Country Championships held Nov. 21 at the Lake Breeze Golf Course in Winneconne, Wisconsin.