NEW ORLEANS, LA --- The Moravian College men's & women's track & field teams are both ranked in the Mideast Region in the sixth NCAA Division III Regional Team Index of the 2012 indoor season released by the U S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Wednesday. The Greyhound women remained third while the men moved up one spot to second in the top-ten regional rankings.
The women are coming off their fifth straight Landmark Conference championship, and sixth straight conference title while the men won their third straight Landmark championship this past weekend.
Johns Hopkins University is currently first in the women's Mideast Region with 196.43 points while Misericordia University is second at 158.15. Moravian is third with 151.20 points while Salisbury University is fourth with 143.70 points, and Lebanon Valley College rounds out the top five with 120.98 points. Haverford College, Swarthmore College, Franklin & Marshall College, Elizabethtown College and Ursinus College fill in spots six through ten, respectively.
The Greyhound men have a total of 162.14 points while sitting in second place. Haverford College leads the Mideast Region with 274.62 points while Widener University is third at 160.83 points. Carnegie Mellon University holds down the fourth spot at 144.36 points and is trailed by Messiah College in fifth place with 129.76 points. Gwynedd-Mercy College, Elizabethtown College, Johns Hopkins University, Lebanon Valley College and Dickinson College round out spots six through ten, respectively.
Moravian will return to action on Saturday and Sunday, March 2nd-3rd when they head to the NYC Armory for the 2012 ECAC Division III Indoor Championships.
About the Rankings
For more on the national team rankings and links to guideline and rationale information, click here.
Rankings are determined by a mathematical formula, which is based on current national descending order lists. This is what's used to compile a team's ranking. 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-title race.
The Regional Index is determined using a similar method as national rankings, but on a smaller scale, comparing teams versus others within the same region. The result is a ranking that showcases squads with better all-around team potential — a group makeup critical for conference or similar team-scored events. A team may achieve a better regional ranking than a counterpart that has a better national ranking. Historically, some teams are better national-championship teams than conference-championship teams, having a few elite athletes that score very well in a diverse environment where teams do not have entries in more than a few events. Some teams are better at conference championships or similar team-scored events where they enter, and are competitive, in many of the events.
How a team fares in a national championship, conference championship, or scored meet with only a couple or few teams (like a dual or triangular) can be very different, given the number of events, competition, scoring, and makeup of entries — thus the rationale behind each of the ranking systems. Similar arguments about team makeup and rankings can also be found in swimming & diving and wrestling as their sports also have a similar trichotomy when it comes to team theory.
