Azusa Pacific currently second in Directors' Cup
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Azusa Pacific is the first NAIA school ever to win 5 straight Directors' Cups. The Cougars been the best athletics program in the NAIA since 2005.
Published
December 23, 2009
AZUSA, Calif. – Five-time defending champion Azusa Pacific is currently second in the 2009-10 NAIA Directors’ Cup race following the fall sports championship season.
Cup sponsor National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) released the final fall standings earlier today, and Simon Fraser University (B.C.), which like Azusa Pacific has won the Directors’ Cup 5 previous times, topped the NAIA board with 260 points. During the fall championship season, the Clan scored in women’s cross country (fourth place/80 points), men’s cross country (sixth/72), women’s soccer (17th/25), and men’s soccer (third/83),
Azusa Pacific, which has won the Cup every year since 2005, is second with 231 points. The Cougars scored Cup points in women’s cross country (fifth/75), women’s soccer (third/83) and women’s volleyball (fifth/73). This marks this first time since 2004 that Azusa Pacific did not lead the Directors’ Cup race following the fall season, and this year’s 231 points are the Cougars’ lowest fall output since tabulating 193 points in the fall of 2001.
A year ago, Azusa Pacific scored 324 points in the fall. It recorded 333.3 in the fall of 2007 and mustered an NAIA record 392 in the fall of 2006.
Biola University (219.3), Embry Riddle Aeronautical University (212) and Lee University (208) round out the current top 5 in the Cup standings.
The Directors’ Cup is a national awards program that annually recognizes the top intercollegiate athletics programs in the NAIA and NCAA. Schools score points based on the advancement of their teams through their respective national championship tournaments/meets. The philosophy of the Directors’ Cup is to promote and honor broad-based athletic programs that excel in a variety of sports.
No school has ever won 6 consecutive Cups, a feat that Azusa Pacific is chasing this year. The next standings update will be released March 11, 2010, and will include the NAIA winter sports championship results from swimming & diving, wrestling and indoor track & field. An updated standings report will follow March 25 which will include the basketball championship to round out the winter season.
Click here to view the detailed Directors' Cup standings for the NAIA through the fall season.