CLEVELAND, Ohio – At the conclusion of the winter season, St. Olaf College remains in the top 50 and ranks second among all Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) institutions in the LEARFIELD Directors' Cup standings released on Thursday.

St. Olaf earned 46 points in the winter season from its men's hockey and women's swimming and diving teams and sits 49th among the 270 NCAA Division III programs who have received points so far this academic year. Among MIAC programs, only Gustavus (39th) is ahead of St. Olaf in the standings.

This winter, men's hockey earned 25 points by virtue of qualifying for the NCAA Tournament, doing so for the second time in program history after winning the MIAC Playoffs as the No. 7 seed to clinch an automatic bid into the 12-team field. The Oles fell 4-3 in overtime to sixth-ranked St. Norbert in the opening round.

Women's swimming and diving banked 21 points in the standings by tying for 42nd at the NCAA Division III Championships in Indianapolis, as fifth-year senior Sophia Nevin provided St. Olaf with its two points in the standings with a 15th-place showing in the 200-yard breaststroke.

The Oles racked up 184 points in the fall season thanks to top-20 national finishes in men's soccer, men's cross country, and women's cross country. The 184 points led all MIAC institutions, ranked 26th nationally, and represented St. Olaf's highest total for the fall since 2015-16.

St. Olaf has 12 top-50 finishes in the 24 years of the Directors' Cup, including a best-ever 19th-place finish in 1999-00.

The LEARFIELD Directors' Cup is a program that honors institutions maintaining a broad-based program, awarding points based on each institution's national finish in the NCAA Championships. The program was started in 1993-94 by NACDA and USA Today and expanded to include NCAA Division II, III, and the NAIA in 1995-96.