NCAA Division III Field Hockey Bracket Set

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Release Courtesy of NCAA.com

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (Nov. 9, 2009) - The NCAA Division III Field Hockey Committee has announced today the field of 24 teams that will compete in the 2009 NCAA Division III Field Hockey Championship.

Sixteen teams will compete in eight first-round games Wednesday, November 11. The eight first-round winners, along with the eight teams that received a first-round bye, will compete at four campus sites during second/third-round play, Saturday and Sunday, November 14 and 15.

The winners of the four sites will advance to the semifinals and finals Saturday and Sunday, November 21 and 22, at Mount Holyoke Turf Field on the campus of Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Semifinals will be played at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Saturday, November 21, with the championship game being played Sunday, November 22, at 1 p.m. Ticket information is available at the official championship website.

Sixteen conferences have been awarded automatic qualification for their champions into the 2009 championship. Two teams were selected from Pool B, which consists of independent institutions and institutions that are members of conferences that do not meet the requirements for automatic qualification. Finally, six berths were reserved for Pool C, which consists of institutions from automatic-qualifying conferences that are not the conference champions and the remaining teams from Pool B.

The Tufts University Jumbos will look to return to the finals at Mount Holyoke in this year’s championship in pursuit of their first NCAA field hockey championship title, after falling in last year’s double-overtime championship game against Bowdoin at Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pennsylvania. Previous champions in this year’s tournament include State University of New York at Cortland (1993, 1994, 2001), Middlebury College (1998), Rowan University (2002), Salisbury University (1986, 2003, 2004, 2005) and Ursinus College (2006).

Six schools will make history this year with their first appearance in the NCAA Division III Field Hockey Championship: Cabrini College, Hamilton College, Husson University, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Nichols College. Salisbury is making its 16th consecutive championship appearance, the longest active streak in Division III field hockey.

The dates, sites and pairings are listed on the complete championship bracket. For more information about the championship, log on to www.ncaa.com.

The 16 conferences and schools receiving automatic qualification are:
Capital Athletic Conference - Salisbury University
Centennial Conference - Ursinus College
Colonial States Athletic Conference - Cabrini College
Commonwealth Conference - Messiah College
Commonwealth Coast Conference - Nichols College
Empire 8 - Stevens Institute of Technology
Freedom Conference - Eastern University
Landmark - Juniata College
Liberty League - Skidmore College
Little East Conference - University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth
New England Small College Athletic Conference - Tufts University
New England Women’s and Men’s Athletics Conference - MIT
New Jersey Athletic Conference - Rowan College
North Atlantic Conference - Husson College
North Coast Athletic Conference - College of Wooster
Old Dominion Athletic Conference - Lynchburg College

The two Pool B teams are:
Christopher Newport University
SUNY Cortland

The six Pool C teams are:
Amherst College
Hamilton College
Lebanon Valley College
Middlebury College
Trinity College (Connecticut)
Wittenberg University