Contact: Clark Teuscher, Sports Information Director, 630-637-5302

USTFCCCA Pre-Championship National Rankings

Nov. 14, 2016 - The North Central College men's cross country team has, at least temporarily, settled the debate regarding the nation's No. 1 ranking among NCAA Division III teams, receiving all eight first-place votes to claim unanimous top-ranked status in the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Pre-Championship National Rankings, released Monday.

After dropping from the top spot on a pair of occasions earlier in the season, the Cardinals won their 43rd straight College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin (CCIW) Championship with a perfect score of 15 on Oct. 29 before winning the Division III Midwest Region Championship on Saturday with a score of 37 points, well ahead of the No. 4-ranked University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire's runner-up score of 91.

The State University of New York at Geneseo is ranked second, followed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Wisconsin-Eau Claire and Williams College (Massachusetts). The top 10 is rounded out by the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, Claremont McKenna-Harvey Mudd-Scripps Colleges (California), Amherst College (Massachusetts), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (New York) and Washington University in St. Louis.

The Cardinals have been ranked first or second in 70 of the last 76 national polls and has been ranked first in 61 of the 91 polls the USTFCCCA has released.

The 2016 Division III National Championship will be contested on Saturday at E.P. Sawyer State Park in Louisville, Kentucky. The men's race is set to begin at noon Eastern time.