Princeton Ranked Fourth in Learfield Sports Directors' Cup Standings

PRINCETON, N.J. -- Princeton University is currently ranked fourth in the 2009-10 Learfield Sports Directors' Cup standings, which ranks Division I athletic programs based on their success in postseason competition.

The No. 4 ranking, out of more than 330 Division I schools, is Princeton's highest at any point since the program began. The Tigers have two Top 25 finishes.

The Unviersity of Virginia, which won the NCAA men's soccer championship, is ranked No. 1, ahead of No. 2 University of North Carolina, who won field hockey and women's soccer, and No. 3 Stanford University.

Princeton had two fall teams reach the NCAA Final Four (field hockey and men's water polo) and a third (women's cross country) finish fifth nationally. The men's soccer team also reached the NCAA tournament.

Overall, Princeton is one of eight CWPA schools ranked as the University of Maryland (#5), Indiana University (#29), Harvard University (#33) and Iona College (#48) rate among the Divsion I Top 50, while Johns Hopkins University (#8), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (#18) and Wheaton College (#48) rank in Division III.

The Director's Cup program rewards schools with a broad-based approach to intercollegiate athletics. The final fall standings, which will be updated to include football, will be released next week.

Presented by USA Today and the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) since 1993, the  Learfield Sports Directors' Cup has grown into a highly recognized mark of distinction among collegiate institutions through a point system that awards a respective institution points based on its national finish in an NCAA or NAIA championship.