UW-La Crosse Men, Women Sit Atop NCAA DIII Dual Meet Rankings
NEW ORLEANS — For the first time this season, the same university has the top-ranked men’s and women’s team in the NCAA Division III Outdoor Track & Field Dual Meet Rankings.
The men from UW-La Crosse joined the women atop the most recent rankings that were released Thursday.
QUICK LINKS: Men’s Rankings | Women’s Rankings
In the tightly-contested men’s rankings, the Eagles leapfrogged Augustana (Ill.) and Rowan, last week’s No. 1 and No. 2 teams, respectively. UW-La Crosse owns a 1.01-point advantage over the Vikings (216.17-215.16) after trailing them by 6.07 points last week.
Sitting behind the Eagles and Augustana (Ill.) are the third-ranked Owls, fourth-ranked Williams and fifth-ranked UW-Platteville.
Over in the women’s rankings, UW-La Crosse strengthened its lead over Whitworth. The Eagles now have 214.50 points compared to the Pirates’ 202.00.
UW-Stout sits in third behind UW-La Crosse and Whitworth with Claremont-Mudd-Scripps and Ithaca rounding out the top-5.
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 Thursday 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.
