LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Defending national champion Texas Lutheran captured its seventh straight Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference tournament championship and continued as the top team in the NFCA Division III Top 25 Coaches Poll.
The (28-4) Bulldogs defeated Centenary (La.), 2-1, on Monday at Schreiner’s Mountaineer Field on Rebecca Snow’s walk-off single with the bases loaded and two out in the bottom of the seventh. Snow had tied the game an inning earlier on a homer to right center.
Meanwhile, Virginia Wesleyan (33-5-1) kept rolling along in the No. 2 spot, winning twice against Shenandoah in Saturday’s Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) tournament to advance to today’s first two games of a best-of-three semifinal round against Roanoke. In the first game against Shenandoah, two-time Schutt Sports/NFCA Player of the Year Hanna Hull broke the Division III record for career wins with her 125th, passing Coast Guard’s Hayley Feindel, who collected 124 victories from 2009-12.
DePauw (31-2) moved up two more spots this week, to third, on the strength of its 15-game win streak, and Moravian (26-0) went from ninth to fourth after winning its 30th straight game going back to the last four games of 2020.
Elsewhere, Randolph-Macon (14-7-1) was idle but dropped a spot to No. 17, after being forced to miss last week’s start of the ODAC tournament due to COVID-19 protocols. George Fox (27-9), fresh off a four-game split with then-No. 8 Linfield, is this week’s poll newcomer at No. 25.
The NFCA Division III Top 25 Poll is selected by eight NCAA Division III head coaches representing the eight NCAA regions. Current records are listed, with first-place votes in parentheses. In 2021, schools that are not competing will not be eligible for the poll.
NFCA Division III Top 25 Poll – May 5, 2021
|
Rank |
Team |
2021 Record |
Points |
Previous |
|
1 |
Texas Lutheran (8) |
28-4 |
200 |
1 |
|
2 |
Virginia Wesleyan |
33-5-1 |
192 |
2 |
|
3 |
DePauw |
31-2 |
184 |
5 |
|
4 |
Moravian |
26-0 |
176 |
9 |
|
5 |
Birmingham-Southern |
29-5 |
168 |
T3 |
|
6 |
Eastern Connecticut State |
24-2 |
160 |
T3 |
|
7 |
Belhaven |
30-8 |
152 |
6 |
|
8 |
East Texas Baptist |
26-5 |
144 |
7 |
|
9 |
Emory & Henry |
25-5 |
136 |
10 |
|
10 |
Berry |
25-8 |
123 |
11 |
|
11 |
Linfield |
33-7 |
120 |
8 |
|
T12 |
Christopher Newport |
26-10 |
106 |
14 |
|
Salisbury |
21-7 |
106 |
13 |
|
|
14 |
St. John Fisher |
25-3 |
103 |
12 |
|
15 |
Wartburg |
25-6 |
90 |
15 |
|
16 |
The College of New Jersey |
17-3 |
70 |
18 |
|
17 |
Randolph-Macon |
14-7-1 |
62 |
16 |
|
18 |
Mount Union |
30-6 |
61 |
19 |
|
19 |
St. Olaf |
21-3 |
48 |
22 |
|
20 |
Concordia (Wis.) |
28-6 |
43 |
20 |
|
21 |
Rowan |
25-5 |
38 |
21 |
|
22 |
Rochester |
26-7 |
34 |
25 |
|
23 |
St. Scholastica |
32-6 |
30 |
17 |
|
24 |
Williams |
12-0 |
20 |
23 |
|
25 |
George Fox |
27-9 |
10 |
NR |
Others receiving votes: Alvernia 6, Misericordia 4, Mount St. Joseph 4, Milwaukee School of Engineering 3, Hope 3, Bethel (Minn.) 2, Aurora 1, Ithaca 1.
Dropped out: Coe, Saint Benedict and Trine.
Programs that do not participate during the 2021 season will not be eligible for the poll.
