KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Cumberlands (Ky.) dropped three spots to sixth in the final NAIA Women’s Cross Country Coaches’ Top 25 Ratings of the regular season, NAIA officials announced on Monday.
 
The Patriots captured the MSC title last week with a commanding team effort, posting 22 points behind a pair of top-three finishers and placing all seven scoring runners inside the top 11 in the Women's 6K. With this conference title, the Patriots secure an automatic bid into the NAIA National Championship. Four other MSC athletes earned a bid to the NAIA Cross Country Championships in Tallahassee, FL. Freed-Hardeman’s Eliza Poe and Mary Pearce, Georgetown’s Elizabeth Lavinder, and Cumberland University’s Sarah Wilkerson.
 
Cumberlands received 446 points to rank sixth headed into the NAIA Cross Country National Championships.
 
Ratings Methodology

• The rating is rated by a panel of head coaches representing each of the conferences and unaffiliated groupings.
• The Top 25 is determined by a points system based on how each rater rates the best teams. A team receives 30 points for each first-place vote, 29 for second-place, 28 for third-place and so on through the list.
• The highest and lowest ratings for each team (a non-rating is considered a low rating) are removed. The team’s rating will be recalculated with an additional point added to each team for every ballot (including discounted ballots) that the team appears on.
• Teams that receive only one point in the ballot are not considered “receiving votes”.