CLEVELAND, Ohio - After a standout winter season for Williams College athletic teams, the Ephs have moved up to 2nd place in the 2025-26 Learfield Directors' Cup standings, published on Thursday by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA). Williams has a total of 811 points in the overall Division III standings, just 1.25 points behind NYU in first place.
Williams finished the fall season in 4th place, trailing Tufts, Johns Hopkins, and Washington-St. Louis, and moved up into second thanks to strong performances at the NCAA Championships by women's indoor track & field (90 points), women's swimming (75 points), men's swimming (70.5 points), wrestling (69 points), women's ice hockey (60 points), men's indoor track & field (46 points), skiing (32 points), and men's ice hockey (25 points).
The Learfield Directors' Cup was developed as a joint effort between the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) and USA Today. Points are awarded based on each institution's finish in NCAA Championships.
Only NYU scored points in as many different sports as did the Ephs, who showed depth across the department in the winter season, led by the women's indoor track & field team, who finished in second place at the NCAA Championships in Birmingham, Ala. last month. The group had 17 All-American performances at the event. The men's team also picked up valuable points, finishing in 25th at the same competition.
The swim teams earned huge points as well, peaking at the NCAA Championships in Indianapolis where the women finished in 5th place and the men in 8th. Another sport in which both the women's and men's teams picked up points was hockey, where the women advanced to the national quarterfinal and the men earned a spot in the opening round of the 14-team tournament. The Ephs were one of only three D3 schools with both men's and women's teams in the NCAA hockey tournaments.
Wrestling captured 69 points with its best-ever finish at the national championship, with Peter Kane winning his weight class and a pair of other wrestlers making the podium en route to a 9th-place finish as a team. The ski team placed Alpine skier Eliza Sullivan and Nordic athlete Quinn McDermott at the NCAA Championship, where the Ephs finished 21st against largely-Division I schools.
With NYU (812.25 total points) and Williams (811.00 points) leading the way, the Division III standings have Washington-St. Louis in third with 787.50 points, Johns Hopkins is in fourth with 784.00 points and Tufts rounding out the top five with 739.75 points. NESCAC also features Amherst in 8th (590.50), Middlebury in 15th (446.00), Wesleyan in 23rd (395.50) and Colby in 25th (360.50).
Midseason standings are considered unofficial, with the official final standings to be published upon the completion of the spring season. Complete standings and the scoring structure can be found on NACDA's website at www.directorscup.org.
The Directors' Cup has been awarded in Division III since 1995-96, and Williams has won 22 of the 28 Cups awarded since the honor was inaugurated.
