TRINITY MAINTAINS LEAD IN RACE FOR 2023-24 SCAC PRESIDENTS' TROPHY

SUWANEE, Ga. -- Trinity University picked up winter sports championships in men's swimming and diving, women's swimming and diving and women's basketball to maintain its lead in the race for the 2023-24 Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference Presidents' Trophy. Winter Results

Those three championships, coupled with previously earned conference titles in women's soccer and volleyball, have helped the Texas Tigers accumulate 347.5 points in the all-sports standings, 50 points clear of second-place Colorado College. 

Trinity has finished no worse than third in any sport this season, tying for third place in men's basketball after posting second-place finishes in both men's and women's cross country as well as men's soccer in the fall. Both the Trinity men's and women's basketball teams qualified for NCAA Tournament play and the Tigers will send six women's and two men's swimmers to the NCAA Division III Championships later this month. 

At the completion of winter championship play, the TU Tigers have accumulated 347.5 total points in the all-sports standings and sit 50 points clear of Colorado College, who has 297.5 points. The CC Tigers posted runner-up finishes in all four of the league's sponsored winter sports after sweeping both the men's and women's cross country titles for the third consecutive year in the fall.

Southwestern University, on the strength of a pair of third place finishes in both men's and women's swimming and diving, moved up one place in the team standings with 205 points. University of St. Thomas, which won its third consecutive SCAC men's soccer title in the fall, slipped once spot to fourth place with 200 points.

Continuing down the team standings following the completion of the winter season, Texas Lutheran University is fifth with 167.5 points, followed by Schreiner University in sixth place with 125 points. Austin College improved one place in the team standings from the fall and is now seventh with 117.5 points, followed closely by University of Dallas with 112.5 points and Centenary College with 102.5 points. The Gents picked up their second men's basketball tournament title and first since 2020 on their home floor two weekends ago.

Trinity has won the last 12 SCAC Presidents' Trophies and has claimed the bell signifying conference supremacy 23 times overall. Both of those marks (consecutive and all-time wins) represent the current record in a league that has been recognizing an all-sports champion every year since 1962. 

SCAC PRESIDENT'S TROPHY QUICK FACTS

The symbol of conference supremacy is the 300-pound railroad bell which was donated to the SCAC by the Norfolk and Western Railroad. This bell, the "Presidents' Trophy", is a rotating award and goes to the school with the best overall sports record for the year.

The bell has been a part of the conference since its inception in 1962. In fact, the first conference logo, when the league was known as the College Athletic Conference, has the image of the bell incorporated into it.

The Presidents' Trophy is displayed for one year on the campus of the school with the combined men's and women's athletics program that accumulates the highest points total in the all-sports race.

The system used for distributing Presidents' Trophy points awards those points based off an institution's finish at the conference championship event. Points are awarded from the bottom up in increments of five for each place, with a last place finish in any officially recognized conference sport worth five points. A member institution must declare and sponsor the sport as varsity status with the NCAA to particiapte and score in any conference championship.

SCAC Presidents' Trophy - Archived Year-by-Year Results