Pittsburg State Women Take Over NCAA DII Rankings as Regular Season Ends

NEW ORLEANS – The book has been closed on the NCAA Division II Outdoor Track & Field season, and the national team title races remain very intriguing heading into next weekend’s Championships in Bradenton, Florida.

The Pittsburg State women have narrowly overtaken reigning indoor national champion Lincoln (Mo.) atop their gender’s top-25, while the three-time defending national champion Saint Augustine’s men remain ahead of a very large chase pack.

It should be noted that these rankings take into account all results from the 2016 outdoor season; next week’s pre-Championships rankings will factor in only those athletes who qualified to Bradenton for the May 26-28 championship meet.

PSU checked in this time with 160.64 ranking points, just two points ahead of Lincoln with 158.65. While the points to not equate to NCAA Championship points, the totals do indicate the great potential for a tight race between the two.

Not far behind is stationary No. 3 Saint Augustine’s (146.99), as well as new No. 4 West Texas A&M (138.14) and No. 5 Hillsdale (128.70). The latter two schools swapped spots from a week ago.

No. 6 Grand Valley State (120.09) moved up two spots from last time, displacing both No. 7 Findlay (119.51) and No. 8 Johnson C. Smith (115.51) one spot apiece. Rounding out the top 10 were defending national champion Central Missouri (115.07) and Texas A&M-Kingsville (88.42).

The three-time reigning champion Saint Augustine’s men slipped just slightly to 234.34 points, still well ahead of their nearest challengers in No. 2 Texas A&M-Kingsville (172.04) and No. 3 Grand Valley State (163.32).

No. 4 Adams State (139.24) and reigning indoor national champion No. 5 Tiffin (132.31) swapped spots this weekend.

No. 6 Chico State (106.07) and No. 7 Central Missouri (100.71) held firm from last time, while the final three spots in the top 10 all shifted. No. 8 Pittsburg State (87.67) stepped up two positions to leapfrog both No. 9 Ashland (86.95) and No. 10 Shippensburg (84.27).

The biggest move of any top-25 team in the nation this week came courtesy of the No. 25 Shorter men, who jumped 13 positions from last time.

For the women, both No. 16 Cal State Stanislaus and No. 18 Chico State improved six positions over the last seven days.

The National Team Computer Rankings are complied by a mathematical formula based on national descending order lists. The purpose and methodology of the rankings is to create an index that showcases the teams that have the best potential of achieving the top spots in the national team race. Rankings points do not equate with NCAA Championships team points.

A full description of the rankings can be found here.