Not Much Breathing Room In NCAA DIII Outdoor Track & Field Dual Meet Rankings

NEW ORLEANS — There are two new No. 1 teams in the NCAA Division III Outdoor Track & Field Dual Meet Rankings.

The Rose-Hulman men and the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women surged to the front of the pack in the rankings released Wednesday by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA).

QUICK LINKS: Men’s Rankings | Women’s Rankings

It’s not that big of a lead for the Fighting Engineers, however, as they have the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men breathing down their neck. Rose-Hulman has 172.86 points, compared to the Stags’ 171.07. Last week’s No. 1 team Rowan University fell to No. 4 behind No. 3 Occidental College.

In the women’s rankings, the Athenas sit comfortably ahead of second-ranked Emory. CMS has 168.25 points, while the Eagles trail by 8.07 points. Ohio Northern finds itself in third (147.50), followed by Pomona-Pitzer (132.81) and Carnegie Mellon (130.66).

The full rankings — including breakdowns by region, conference and head-to-head matchups — can be found on D3Rankings.us.

These rankings, compiled by Carnegie Mellon’s Gary Aldrich and released every Wednesday during the season, differ from the USTFCCCA National Team Computer Rankings in one important respect.

While the USTFCCCA Rankings are designed to forecast how programs might fare at the NCAA Championships, these Team Dual Meet Rankings are indicative of how full teams with two athletes per event would fare in head-to-head competition.

Scores are the sums of all points earned by a team in each event. Only two athletes per team may be considered in each event (and one relay team per event), and an athlete can only be used in up to three events, excluding relays. Points are based on the best marks by those athletes in the current season.

Programs must be a member of the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association to be eligible for the rankings. You can check your membership status here. In addition, a member of that program’s coaching staff has to submit the marks to the rankings.