Grand Valley still leads Director’s Cup

Published 4:07 pm Thursday, December 23, 2010

CLEVELAND — Grand Valley State remains atop the final fall Learfield Sports Directors’ Cup standings with 411 points.

The Lakers finished in the top 10 in all five of the championships they qualified for with the most recent being a ninth place finish in football.

Shippensburg (Pa.) is once again in the second place spot. The Raiders have a total of 264 points.

The Mules of Central Missouri enter the top-five in third place after a fifth place finish in football.

They have 259 points.

Tampa (Fla.) currently sits in fourth place with 224 total points.

Rounding out the top-five is Chico State. The Wildcats accumulated a total of 220 points in the fall championships.

All seven fall NCAA championships have been completed with the following institutions capturing titles: women’s soccer — Grand Valley State; men’s soccer — Northern Kentucky; women’s volleyball — Concordia (Minn.); women’s field hockey — Massachusetts Lowell; men’s cross country — Adams State (Colo.); women’s cross country — Grand Valley State; football — Minnesota Duluth.

The Learfield Sports Directors’ Cup was developed as a joint effort between the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) and USA Today.  Points are awarded based on each institution’s finish in up to 14 sports — seven women’s and seven men’s.

The first Division II winter standings will be released Thursday, March 17.