LOCK HAVEN, Pa. – At the conclusion of 14 Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference fall and winter championships, Gannon University remains in first place in the 2022-23 Dixon Trophy Standings. The Golden Knights also sat atop the standings after the fall’s eight total championships.
The Dixon Trophy is awarded at the end of each academic year to the league’s most successful institution based on conference playoff and/or regular-season finish. Standings are compiled based on average score for all of the PSAC Championship sports each school sponsors. Equal to its total membership, each conference sport champion is awarded 18 points and a descending point value is given for respective place finishes. The second-place through last-place values vary depending on the number of schools that sponsor the sport.
Gannon has an overall average of 13.29 after competing in 12 of the 14 possible PSAC championships. On the women’s side, Gannon’s top finishes in the winter included runner-up in the PSAC Women’s Basketball Championship and fourth place for women’s swimming at the PSAC Swimming Championships. For the men, Golden Knights’ swimming placed second overall at the PSAC Swimming Championships and men’s wrestling claimed the second-highest finish among all eight qualifying institutions.
West Chester University currently sits in second place in the standings, totaling a 12.36 overall average. The Golden Rams participated in all six winter championships, highlighted by first-place finishes by both men’s and women’s swimming at the PSAC Swimming Championships as well as a quarterfinal appearance by men’s basketball and a semifinal appearance by women’s basketball in those respective tournaments.
Slippery Rock (11.09), Shippensburg (11.04), and Kutztown (10.88) round out the top five of the current standings.
IUP leads all men’s sports with an average of 13.00 following a PSAC title in basketball in addition to the fall’s titles in football and men’s golf. Gannon sits in first for the women’s sports average (14.80) thanks to the aforementioned runner-up finish in women’s basketball and fourth-place finish for women’s swimming. In the fall, the Golden Knights won the PSAC women's volleyball title and made a title game appearance in women's soccer.
Introduced in the 1995-96 academic year, the award is named in honor of F. Eugene Dixon, Jr., former chairman of Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education's Board of Governors. Since then, nine PSAC institutions have claimed the Dixon Trophy. Shippensburg leads the league with eight victories, followed by West Chester’s five. Lock Haven and Bloomsburg have three titles apiece, and California (Pa.) follows with two victories. Gannon, Kutztown, Slippery Rock, and Millersville have each won once.
The final update of the 2022-23 Dixon Trophy standings will be released following the conclusion of the spring championship season in May of 2023.