FARMVILLE — Longwood recorded the highest Academic Progress Rate (APR) scores among three Big South-sanctioned sports and saw five programs achieve a score of 990 or higher for the period ending with the 2013-14 academic year, the NCAA announced last Wednesday.
Among those scores of 990-plus were a perfect 1,000 from the women’s cross country team, which received special recognition from the NCAA for that accomplishment last week, and a 996 from the 2015 Big South Champion Longwood softball program.
Those two Longwood programs and the Lancer women’s lacrosse team (983) all led their Big South counterparts in APR scoring for the four-year period ending in 2013-14.
Longwood also achieved a top-three APR ranking among all Division I schools in the Commonwealth of Virginia in softball, women’s basketball (990) and women’s cross country.
Women’s cross country tied for the highest score in the state, softball trailed only the University of Virginia, and women’s basketball fell behind only Liberty and Richmond.
The APR is a multi-year measurement of academic progress and an institution’s retention of student-athletes. The metric is designed to track student-athletes who receive athletics financial aid and is based on two factors: eligibility and progress toward graduation, and retention.
Despite fielding the second fewest sports of any school in the Big South, Longwood was one of only three conference schools to lead in three separate APR-by-sport rankings.
Longwood’s five teams that scored 990 or higher also tied three other league schools and trailed only UNC Asheville, with seven, for the most Big South programs reaching that benchmark.
In addition to Longwood’s three league leaders, men’s golf (991) placed second among Big South teams, field hockey (981) took third among Mid-American Conference programs, baseball (964) and women’s basketball (990) placed fourth in the Big South and both women’s soccer (986) and women’s tennis (991) ranked fifth.
Men’s golf’s score of 991 was the program’s highest in the Division I era, while the women’s cross country team’s perfect score was its fifth straight.
In addition, softball logged a score of 996-plus for the fourth straight year, and both the women’s basketball and women’s tennis teams reached at least 990 for the second straight year.
The women’s soccer program, meanwhile, achieved a mark of 986 to extend a streak of eight consecutive years of 980 or higher.