MCLEAN, Va.—Capital
One Financial Corporation, an official NCAA Corporate Champion announced the
final women's standings yesterday for the Capital One Cup. The award, given to the best men's and women's
Division I athletic programs in the country, awards points based on teams'
top-10 finishes in NCAA Championships and in the final official coaches' polls
across 20 women's sports and 19 men's.
The University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES) finished 32nd
out of 346 DI schools with 20 points, to finish in the top 10 percent of all
schools on the women's side. This is
just the second year of the Capital One Cup.
UMES tied with three other
schools, Georgetown, Minnesota and TCU.
Stanford won the cup with 152.5 points, UCLA was second with 110. The University of Maryland was tenth with 62
points to finish as the top school in the state while UMES is the only
Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) school to record points in the final
standings.
The points can be attributed
to the success of women's bowling, who not only won back-to-back national
championships, but finished first in the final National Tenpins Coaches
Association (NTCA) poll.
UMES also has had significant
years out of several of their women's programs and are ranked in the top one
third of the Learfield Sports' Director's Cup standings, overseen by the
National Collegiate Director's of Athletics (NACDA), who measure the success of
all the sports sponsored by DI schools.
Bowling scored 100 points for finishing first. Volleyball won the MEAC Championship before falling to eventual
champion UCLA in the first round of the tournament (33rd overall, 25
points). Track and Field also was solid
as Lenora Guion-Firmin (La Trinite Martinique, France) finished seventh
and eighth respectively in the 400m at the Indoor (Team-55th
overall, 16.5 points) and Outdoor (Team-63rd overall, 5 points)
National Championships.
Those accomplishments had the Hawks ranked 117th
with 146.5 points in the latest standings.
While the athletic season isn't complete, UMES is poised for their best
season ever since the cup started in 1993-94.
Previously the Hawks' best three finishes came in 2007 (157th), 2008
(151st) and in 2011 (150th). The final standings will be announced later this month.
