The following is a press release courtesy of Iowa State Athletic Communications.
AMES, Iowa – In one of the closest competitions in the 14-year history of the Iowa Corn Cy-Hawk Series, it came down to the final metric and Iowa State prevailed 14-13.
Both schools won six of the athletics competitions, but the Hawkeyes had assumed a 13-12 lead because the football win was worth three points. However, the Cyclones earned the final two series points based on the NCAA’s release of the single-year Academic Progress Rate (APR) scores yesterday.
“What’s neat about the Iowa Corn Cy-Hawk Series is that it’s a celebration of the outstanding students that represent both institutions academically and athletically,” Iowa State Director of Athletics Jamie Pollard said. “We were very fortunate to have our best-ever Academic Progress Rate (APR) score this year and we needed that performance to win the series by one point. It is very similar to both schools earning A’s on a final exam but having the professor grade the class on a curve so one score is slightly better than the other score. Both institutions still got A’s and should be very proud of how their student-athletes performed academically.”
The APR calculation, created by the NCAA in 2004, is a metric that accounts for the eligibility and retention of student-athletes.
“What is awesome about the Iowa Corn series is that it allows Iowa State and Iowa to showcase their outstanding young women and men on the field and in the classroom,” Pollard said. “We were most fortunate to win in one of the tightest competitions in series history but recognize that both schools did an outstanding job in the classroom this year.”
The Hawkeyes had built a 13-8 lead with wins in soccer, football, women’s basketball, swimming & diving, wrestling and tennis. The Cyclones picked up victories in volleyball, men’s cross country, women’s cross country and men’s basketball.
ISU then took both the gymnastics dual and softball game this spring before the APR points were added this week.
The schools tied in the 2015-16 competition and the next closest series result was a 14-11 Cyclone win in 2013-14.
Iowa State leads the all-time series 7-6-1 and is 3-1-1 in the last five years.
