Stanford Wins 109th NCAA Title, Closes in on UCLA for Most Titles

With the national championship win by the women's tennis team on Tuesday, Stanford won its 109th NCAA Division 1 national championship. Only one school has more national championships than Stanford: UCLA at 113.

Coming into this year, Stanford trailed UCLA by five titles, but Stanford closed the gap after picking up two national championships so far this year (in men's soccer and now women's tennis), while UCLA has only picked up one national championship (in men's water polo).

The red line represents Stanford, the blue line UCLA

Stanford also came painfully close to winning a third and fourth national championship this year. The women's water polo team lost the national championship final to USC by only the narrowest of margins: by a score of 8-7. And just today, the women's golf team lost the National Championship to Washington by a final score of 3-2.

Earlier this year, Stanford extended its NCAA-best streak of 40 consecutive years with at least one national championship. The 40-year (and counting!) streak is far and away the best streak in NCAA; USC's second-best streak lasted only 19 years before it came to an end.

The Pac-12 has historically dominated college athletics, and each of the top three teams in total number of national championships comes from the Pac-12; USC is in third place with 102 national championships, which is head and shoulders above fourth-place Oklahoma State who has only 51 national championships.