PARKLAND – After a historic showing at last weekend's Northwest Conference Championships, the Pacific Lutheran swimming teams received recognition for their success as the latest collegeswimming.com rankings feature the Lute women at No. 17 and the PLU men at No. 28.

The PLU women's swimming team made its NCAA Div. III top 20 debut back in November, as the Lutes climbed as high as No. 14 in the collegeswimming.com rankings. Meanwhile the men ranked No. 46 at the time, making the Lutes' No. 28 ranking the highest of the Div. III era for the men's program.

PLU capped the Northwest Conference season with 12 event championships, 16 program records and 12 NCAA 'B' qualifying times. The Lute women claimed their third straight team championship in dominant fashion, as their 318-point margin of victory was the NWC's largest since 2004. Meanwhile the men's team battled Whitman all weekend for second place and fell 17 points shy of its first top-two conference finish since 1996. The teams combined for 1,344 points, almost 200 more than any other school.

The collegeswimming.com women's rankings score PLU with 657.14 points to sit 17th overall, while the men's team totaled 655.79 points to earn the 28th ranking. PLU now awaits the Feb. 24 release of qualifiers to the NCAA Championships to see if any Lutes will earn a spot at the national meet.