INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- The Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) will send three teams to the 2015 NCAA Division III Volleyball Championship. Interactive Bracket
The NCAA Division III Women's Volleyball Committee announced today the field of 64 teams for the 2016 NCAA Division III Women's Volleyball Championship, and the SCAC champion, Trinity University will be joined by Colorado College and Southwestern University, both of which earned at-large bids.
This marks the 12th consecutive season (2005-Present) and 16th overall time that the SCAC has placed at least two teams into NCAA volleyball postseason competition. It is the first time since 2013 that the league has had three teams in the tournament.
SCAC tournament champion, Trinity University (27-7) earned the title over the weekend, while Southwestern (30-4) came in second and Colorado College (27-5) finished in third place.
Trinity will face former SCAC foe Hendrix College (24-7) in the first round. The winner of that match will go up against the winner of the match between regional host University of Texas-Dallas and the Northwest Conference champion, Whitworth University.
Southwestern will begin the tournament with the University of La Verne (22-6), while Colorado College will meet Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (23-3).
With the bracket design, and if the teams continue to advance, there is the potential for an all SCAC region final.
This will be Trinity's 22nd tournament appearance and fourth in the last five years. Colorado College will compete in an 18th straight tournament appearance and 27th overall. Only three schools have more Division III tournament appearances that CC. For Southwestern, this will the school's 14th trip to the NCAA Tournament and 12th in the last 13 years.
Forty-three conferences were awarded an automatic qualification for the 2016 championship. One institution was selected from Pool B, which includes independent institutions and institutions from conferences that do not meet the automatic qualification criteria. The final 20 berths were reserved for Pool C, which consists of institutions from automatic-qualifying conferences that are not the conference champion and independent institutions.
Regional competition will be Friday-Sunday, November 11-13, at all sites except Calvin, Northwestern-St. Paul and Wisconsin-Whitewater, where competition will be Thursday-Saturday, November 10-12.
