Ithaca Wins 2014-15 Commissioner Cup

5/27/2015 1:52:08 PM

Ithaca College has won the Empire 8 Commissioner's Cup for the 2014-15 year; marking the 15th consecutive year the Bombers have won the all-sports award.
 
Standings for the Commissioner's Cup are determined by schools' standings in conference sports.  Ithaca, which sponsors 22 of the league's 23 sports, totaled 148 points out of a possible 167 – good for a percentage of .886.
 
The top two rankings in the standings the last six years has always been a battle between Ithaca and Stevens Institute of Technology. The 2014-2015 academic year was no different and it all came down to the spring championships. Five hundredths of a percentage (.057) following the winter season separated the Bombers and Ducks but it was the Bombers who claimed top honors in two spring sports and runner-up points in four others to secure the Cup.
 
The Bombers had a strong showing across the board during the fall season to get the year started, winning six conference titles, which included men's and women's cross country, women's golf, women's tennis and earned a share of the titles in football and women's soccer.
 
Ithaca won two more E8 titles during the winter season, which included women's indoor track and field and women's swimming & diving.   The Bombers wrapped up the 2014-15 athletic year with an Empire 8 Championship in baseball, and women's outdoor track and field.
 
Stevens finished in second place with a percentage of .805, totaling four championships and six second-place finishes throughout the year. The .805 percentage is the highest total for the Ducks in any Commissioner Cup standing, with the previous highest coming in 2012-13 (.778).
 
Stevens won the men's soccer and women's volleyball titles in the fall and made the conference tournament in field hockey, women's soccer and women's tennis. The Ducks also finished as runner up in men's and women's cross-country and women's tennis. The winter season proved to be successful for the Ducks as they won the men's swimming and diving title for the third straight year, and claimed second in women's swimming. Stevens completed the academic year winning the conference title in men's tennis for the sixth straight year and finished as runner-up in men's golf and baseball.
 
Finishing in third place (.753), sponsoring 21 conference sports, achieving seven conference titles and two second-place finishes are the St. John Fisher Cardinals.
 
Fisher kicked off the academic year with a share of the football title and then proceeded to claim three winter championships as the Cardinals swept men's and women's basketball and won its first ever title in men's indoor track and field.  The spring saw men's golf win its tenth E8 title in eleven years and women's lacrosse defeated Ithaca in the championship game for the fourth straight year. 

Nazareth earned a .575 percentage to place fourth in the final standings. In the fall, the Golden Flyers won a share of the women's soccer title and finished second in women's volleyball. Nazareth consistently finished in the middle of the sport standings during the winter season with fourth place marks in women's basketball, women's indoor track and field and women's swimming and diving all with fourth place marks. The Golden Flyers went undefeated against E8 opponents in men's lacrosse and won its second title in the last three years to cap off the year.
 
Hartwick, Alfred, Utica, Elmira and Houghton complete the standings.
 
Commissioner's Cup points are awarded based on each team's finish in the Empire 8 standings at the completion of the season. Points are awarded on a scale dependent upon the number of schools that sponsor the sport (affiliate members are not calculated into the point scale. Houghton is also not calculated into the standings based on NCAA provisional status). The conference championship team in each sport receives the highest amount of points, followed by the runner-up. Teams tied for a position are ranked based on tiebreaker scenarios. The actual amount of points earned is then divided by the amount of possible points for each school based on conference-sponsored sports to determine percentage.