NCAA weekly notebook: Men’s and beach polls, POWs and more

Sacred Heart senior setter Eduardo Zardo is the EIVA POW/Sacred Heart photo

The MPSF and MIVA quarterfinals loom large, the EIVA and Conference Carolinas races will be decided this week, and the NCAA beach season heads down its home stretch.

This is our weekly Tuesday NCAA notebook. All the polls follow — men’s Division I-II, NCAA RPI men’s Division III and women’s beach — plus some analysis, the POW’s, and more.

NCAA men

AVCA Division I-II Poll: The last week had some pretty predictable results and, accordingly, there were no changes in the first nine spots of the 15-team weekly poll. Long Beach State remained No. 1 with 20 of the 23 first-place votes. Second-ranked Ohio State got two votes and BYU got one.

The first change was at No. 10, where USC moved up a spot. Ball State is up from 13th to No. 11 and Loyola dropped from No. 10 to 12th.

Click here for the AVCA poll

NCAA RPI: It’s got a different look than the poll. BYU is No. 1, followed by Ohio State, Long Beach State, Hawai’i — No. 4 in both — and UC Irvine, which is No. 5 in each. Good news for Lewis, which is No. 6. UCLA is No. 7 and Penn State, No. 13 in the AVCA, is ranked eighth in the RPI.

Click here for the NCAA RPI

AVCA Division III Poll: Springfield took its first loss since the season opener last week, but the 25-2 Pride remained No. 1. However, No. 2 Vassar got one of the 17 first-place votes. Stevens stayed No. 3, but SUNY New Paltz moved up a notch to fourth and Wentworth jumped from No. 7 to No. 5. The biggest leap was by Dominican, which went from 12th to No. 8, while MIT, which beat Springfield, moved up three spots to No. 12. Mount St. Joseph moved in at No. 15.

Click here for the full AVCA Division III poll

National POWs

AVCA Division I-II POW:  Lewis sophomore opposite Mitch Perinar. Perinar averaged 4.43 kills per set and hit .431 in two victories.

AVCA Division III National POW: Dominican University junior right side Luke Spicer. He averaged 5.29 kills per set in two victories. Spicer hit .368 and also had 2.29 digs and .71 blocks.

EIVA

Offensive Player of the Week: Sacred Heart senior setter Eduardo Zardo. The Brazilian averaged 9.9 assists as his team went 1-1, including a victory over Penn State.

Defensive Player of the Week: Princeton freshman middle blocker George Huhmann. The 6-11 Tiger had eight blocks against George Mason to go with 10 kills as he hit .412.

How it shakes out this week:

• Penn State will clinch the regular season championship, the top seed, and be the host for the EIVA Championship with one win or one loss by Saint Francis.
• Saint Francis will clinch the regular-season championship, the top seed, and get to be the host with wins in both matches and Penn State must lose both.
• If Penn State, Princeton, and Saint Francis all tie with a 9-5 record at the end of the regular season, then Penn State will clinch the top seed. In head-to-head records PSU is 3-1, SFU is 2-2, and Princeton is 1-3.

Click here for the EIVA standings

MIVA

Offensive Player of the Week: See AVCA POW above.

Defensive Player of the Week: Loyola sophomore outside Collin Mahan. Mahan averaged 2.57 digs in a 1-1 week and also had three blocks.

Last week’s key results: Ohio State clinched the regular-season title by beating Lindenwood and then getting two wins over Quincy. Ball State swept Loyola to make the Ramblers travel to Ball State for the first-round MIVA match.

The quarterfinals: Quincy goes to Ohio State, Lewis plays host to Lindenwood, Grand Canyon entertains McKendree and Loyola goes to Ball State.

The tournament will reseed after the quarterfinals. The semifinals are April 19. The MIVA Championship is April 22.

Click here for the MIVA standings

Jennings Franciskovic of Hawai’i is the MPSF POW/Hawai’i Athletics photo

MPSF

Player of the Week: Hawai’i senior setter Jennings Franciskovic. He averaged 9.62 assists, 2.38 digs and 1.25 blocks in two wins over UCLA. He also had five kills in 10 swings without an error.

Last week’s key results: Hawai’i’s two wins over UCLA, Long Beach State wrapping up the No. 1 seed by beating CSUN and UCI securing the No. 4 seed with wins over Stanford and Pepperdine.

The quarterfinals: USC is at Long Beach State, UC Irvine plays host to UCLA, Pepperdine is at Hawai’i and Stanford goes to BYU.

The semifinals are April 20 at the home of the top remaining seed and the championship match is April 22.

Click here for the MPSF standings

Conference Carolinas

Player of the Week: King University senior outside hitter Eddie Moushikhian. In a win over Limestone he had 15 kills and three digs to go with three blocks and two aces.

Key matches this week: The league title all comes down to Tuesday as King (26-3, 15-2) plays host to North Greenville and Barton (19-5, 15-2) entertains Mount Olive (16-8, 14-3).

Last week’s key results: King kept pace by beating Limestone.

Worth noting: The league tournament starts April 18.

Click here for the ConfCarolinas standings

NCAA Beach

AVCA Collegiate Beach Poll: The only movement in the top nine spots was UCLA moving from third into a tie at No. 2 with Pepperdine and Hawai’i creeping up from sixth into a tie with Long Beach State at No. 5.

Grand Canyon, 12th last week, moved into a tie at No. 10 with Georgia State. And TCU entered for the first time, getting ranked 13th, as Arizona State dropped out.

Otherwise it’s business as usual at the top, with unbeaten USC No. 1. Florida State stayed at No. 4 and LSU is still No. 7, followed by Arizona and Stetson.

Click here for the entire AVCA Beach poll

CCSA top pair: For the second time this season, Florida State’s Francesca Goncalves was named to this week’s Coastal Collegiate Sports Association honor, this time with a different partner in Vanessa Freire.

Big West top pair: Long Beach State’s Jenelle Hudson and Megan Kruidhof had a perfect week at the No. 5 spot. They went 6-0, have won nine matches in a row and are 21-2 as a pair.

ASUN top pair: Katarina Raicevic and Courtney Miller of North Florida went 4-0.

Pac-12 top pair: Megan and Nicole McNamara of UCLA. The sophomore twins went 6-0 as their team did the same. They are now 23-3 all at No. 1.

Key matches this week: No. 9 Stetson plays No. 2 Pepperdine, No. 10 Grand Canyon and No. 14 Florida International in Tallahassee. The home team, No. 4 Florida State, gets Pepperdine on Friday and Saturday and also plays Grand Canyon and FIU.

No. 5 Long Beach State goes to Manhattan Beach and plays Cal Poly and Loyola Marymount.

Top-ranked USC, the other No. 2, UCLA, and the other No. 5, Hawai’i, have the weekend off.

No. 7 LSU is playing host to Texas A&M Kingsville, Louisiana-Monroe, Texas A&M Corpus Christi and No. 10 Georgia State.

Worth noting: Kelly Claes and Sara Hughes finally lost! Their remarkable streak of 103 victories, spanning nearly two years, ended against Saint Mary’s Lindsey Knudsen and Payton Rund.

NCAA women

USA Collegiate team: USA Volleyball announced its U.S. Women’s Collegiate National Team Europe Tour (CNT-Europe) roster comprised of current collegiate players who will train and compete in Europe from July 5-16.

The roster includes middles Corissa Crocker of Michigan, Claire Kiefer-Wright of Michigan and Jenna Rosenthal of Marquette.

Outside hitters are Washington’s Courtney Schwan, Carlyle Nusbaum of Lipscomb and Jaali Winters of Creighton.

The two opposites are Kelsie Payne of Kansas and Taylor Mims of Washington State.

The setters are San Diego’s Kristen Gengenbacher and Taira Robins-Hardy of BYU, and the libero is Brittany Witt of Creighton.

Cincinnati head coach Molly Alvey will be the head coach and have NC State assistant Nicki Holmes as her assistant.

The team will compete in the 13th Annual European Global Challenge July 11-14 in Pula, Croatia. The team will tentatively train in Maribor, Slovenia.

NCAA: UCLA, Pepperdine win in beach, Springfield men come up big

Pepperdine's Skylar Caputo dives for a ball against Cal Poly/Jeff Golden photo

Most of the NCAA men’s Division I-II volleyball is coming down the home stretch of the regular season and there’s a lot on the line in the MPSF starting Thursday.

The top-ranked D-III Springfield men scored a big victory on Wednesday.

And Pepperdine and UCLA won in NCAA beach on Wednesday.

That and more in this NCAA volleyball roundup.

There are two MPSF matches Thursday.

No. 3 BYU (21-3 overall, 14-2 MPSF) plays at UC Santa Barbara (1-14, 5-11).

No. 11 USC (12-13 overall, 6-10 MPSF) plays host to last-place Cal Baptist (7-19, 2-14), which took No. 6 UCLA to five last week, 20-18 in the deciding set.

Both matches have postseason implications. BYU has a very slim chance of still finishing first in the league, but needs not only to beat UCSB both  Thursday and Friday, but also have top-ranked and first-place Long Beach State lose its Saturday home match to No. 14 CSUN. Long Beach holds the potential tiebreaker over BYU (1-1 head-to-head matches, 5-3 sets).

And USC currently holds the eighth and final spot in the MPSF tournament, a game behind Stanford and one ahead of UCSB. The Trojans go to Cal Baptist on Saturday to conclude the regular season and need to win just one to clinch that eighth spot.

The MIVA, too, is finishing its regular season. Two of its four ranked teams are in action Thursday as second-place and No. 7 Lewis (20-5, 11-3) goes to No. 13 Ball State (17-8, 8-6) and No. 10 Loyola (15-10, 8-6) plays at Fort Wayne (5-21, 2-12). McKendree (9-18, 4-10) is at Quincy (7-19, 2-12). League-leader and second-ranked Ohio State (25-2, 14-0) is at Lindenwood (5-16, 4-10) on Friday.

The EIVA is off until Friday when the slate includes No. 12 Penn State (16-9, 8-2) trying to maintain its two-game lead in the standings at Sacred Heart (12-9, 5-5). On Wednesday, last-place Charleston (12-15) won at independent Alderson Broaddus in four.

The Conference Carolinas regular season goes until April 22. The CC is off Thursday.

Pepperdine’s Delaney Knudsen hits past Long Beach’s Nele Barber as Rachel Nieto is ready to dig/Jeff Golden photo

Waves, Bruins win on the beach: All is quiet on the NCAA beach front on Thursday, but on Wednesday both No. 2 Pepperdine and No. 3 UCLA took care of business.

At Zuma Beach in Malibu, Pepperdine improved to 15-1 and won its 14th in a row by beating No. 12 Grand Canyon 4-1 and then No. 5 Long Beach State 3-2.

Grand Canyon’s No. 1 team of Tjasa Kotnik and Molly Turner beat Pepperdine’s Delaney Knudsen and Madalyn Roh 21-18, 19-21, 15-11, but Knudsen and Roh bounced back to beat Long Beach’s Rachel Nieto and Nele Barber 21-18, 21-19.

Long Beach swept Grand Canyon to improve to 18-4, while GCU dropped to 14-6. In that match, Nieto and Barber beat Kotnik and Turner 21-11, 21-15 for their 20th win of the season.

UCLA played host to Cal Poly and Loyola Marymount and improved to 21-2 with its 19th consecutive victory. The Bruins beat Cal Poly (10-12) in four and then swept LMU (8-9). At No. 1, the McNamara twins, Megan and Nicole, had to work hard to beat Cal Poly’s Emily Sonny and Hannah Hubbard 21-17, 19-21, 15-6. Then they beat LMU’s No. 1 of Sara Sponcil and Savannah Slattery 21-13, 23-21.

Leo Uzcategui dies: The former Central Connecticut women’s coach was in an accident in Ecuador last weekend. He coached CCSU from 1995-99. Click here for the school’s news release.

Pride men roll: In a rematch of last year’s NCAA Division III national championship, the Springfield College men’s volleyball team swept visiting New Paltz Wednesday 28-26, 25-21, 25-14.

Top-ranked Springfield is 25-1. New Paltz, ranked No. 5, dropped to 22-7 with its third consecutive defeat.

Read the VBM feature about Springfield by clicking here. The Pride close out their regular season at MIT on Saturday.

UCLA, LSU win in beach, D-III men gearing up, NAIA men’s field set

A few ranked NCAA beach teams were in action Sunday, including No. 3 UCLA, which beat No. 5 Long Beach State and No. 8 Arizona. No. 7 LSU also won twice as the sport heads into its final regular-season weekend, followed by conference tournaments and then the NCAA Championship May 5-7 in Gulf Shores, Ala.

Two of the four NCAA men’s Division I-II leagues are into their postseason and the NAIA championship field is set.

NCAA beach: UCLA improved to 25-2 with a 3-2 victory over Long Beach in Santa Monica, and then followed that up with 4-1 win over Arizona. The McNamara twins, Megan and Nicole, had to go three to beat Long Beach’s Rachel Nieto and Nele Barber, but won in two against their good friends and another set of twins, Arizona’s McKenna and Madison Witt.

Also Sunday, Long Beach beat Concordia 5-0 and is 21-5. Arizona beat Washington and is 13-8. And Washington, which swept Concordia, is 2-4.

LSU is 18-5 after beating in-state foe Tulane 3-2 and Central Arkansas 5-0 in Houston. LSU has won 16 in a row.

“This was a hard-earned weekend in really windy conditions. All day, we had battles on every court, and I’m really proud that we finished up on the winning side of these duals,” LSU coach Russell Brock said.

LSU’s No. 1 of Claire Coppola and Kristen Nuss had two sweeps. Katie Lindelow and Olivia Powers had to go three to beat Tulane but swept UCA. Cati Leak and Maddie Ligon won twice, the first in two and then in three.

NCAA Division I-II men: All was quiet on the NCAA Division I-II men’s front Sunday as two leagues — the MPSF and MIVA — prepare for Saturday’s respective quarterfinals.
The EIVA has one non-conference match Wednesday when NJIT plays host to Springfield, the top-ranked team in Division III. Then the regular season for a league with a crowded field jockeying for postseason positioning concludes with four matches Friday and four more Saturday.

And Conference Carolinas, which also gets one of the four automatic bids to the NCAA field of six, has three matches Tuesday before taking a week off to start its postseason tournament.

The latest RPI rankings have BYU, tied with Long Beach State for the MPSF regular-season title but ranked No. 3 in the AVCA poll, No. 1. Ohio State is second, followed by Long Beach, Hawai’i and UC Irvine.

Lewis, hanging onto hopes of an NCAA at-large if it doesn’t win the MIVA Tournament, is sixth. The rest of the top 10 has UCLA at No. 7, followed by Penn State, Stanford and Loyola. Penn State is the only EIVA team in the top 15 and No. 15 belongs to the highest-ranked Conference Carolinas team, Barton.

Click here for the full NCAA RPI list.

Division III men: The regular season is finished, but now conference tournaments begin to see who gets into the field of 12 that will be announced Monday, April 17. The top four seeds will automatically make it to Springfield, Mass., for the DIII Championship April 28-30. The next eight teams will square off with the winners filling in the national quarterfinal spots.

Speaking of Springfield, the Pride is no longer unbeaten after falling in five at MIT on Saturday. Springfield, which lost in last year’s national-title match, lost its 2017 season opener and had won every match since, is now 25-2. It’s been the top-ranked team in the AVCA poll all season. MIT, ranked 15th, is 20-9.

The four-person NCAA committee will decide the field on Sunday with the bracket announced Monday on NCAA.com.

“We’re looking forward to the championship. Springfield will do a great job,” said Stevens athletic director Russ Rogers, chair of the D-III committee. “It should be a great experience for the teams and the fans.”

This is Rogers’ third year on the committee and first as chair.

“Ever since the NCAA brought men’s volleyball on as a sport it’s been a huge success,” Rogers said. “The sport is growing and it’s exciting and it’s got a very bright future.”

NAIA men: The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics field of eight starts with two play-in matches on Wednesday.

This year’s field includes five automatic qualifiers and three at-large bids. The automatic berths were determined by conference/group tournaments. Those five tournament winners were Grand View (Iowa), Warner (Fla.), Missouri Baptist, Cardinal Stritch (Wis.) and Lourdes (Ohio). The three remaining at-large bids – Park (Mo.), Ottawa (Kan.) and Missouri Valley – were decided based on the final regular-season Coaches’ Top 10 Poll from April 9.

The winners of the two play-in matches will advance into pool __play with two pools of three teams. Pool __play will begin Thursday morning and end Friday afternoon. The national semifinals are Friday night and the National Invitational final is slotted for a 6 p.m. CDT start on ESPN3 and NAIANetwork.org.

Click here for the NAIA news release that includes records and a link to rankings.

NCAA: USC gets MPSF tourney spot, seed battles galore, beach schedule

Ian Colbert serves for UCSD, which will __play as a member of the MPSF for the last time this weekend/Ed Chan, VBshots.com

All eight spots have been claimed in the MPSF Tournament, thanks to USC’s four-set victory Thursday night over Cal Baptist. But which teams finish where is still very much up for grabs as the league heads into the final regular-season weekend.

The other NCAA men’s Division I-II conferences have plenty of position jockeying going on.

The MIVA heads into its final two days of __play with Ohio State the top seed and Lewis, which beat Ball State in four on Thursday, second and Grand Canyon third. But there is a lot going on for spots 4 through 8.

The EIVA has two more weekends left. Penn State holds a two-game lead in the standings, but with the next six teams all within three games and pretty much everyone playing everyone, nothing is decided.

And Conference Carolinas has all sorts of possibilities as three teams vie for first.

Friday also starts a busy weekend in NCAA beach volleyball.

MPSF: Trojans claim eighth, BYU wins

No. 11 USC put an end to the postseason hopes No. 14 CSUN, which was idle, and No. 3 BYU eliminated UCSB and still held a slim chance of winning the top tournament seed. No. 1 Long Beach State can clinch first place with a victory over visiting CSUN.

Here are the MPSF standings (top eight qualify for playoffs, top four will host):

1. Long Beach       15-2, 23-3

2. BYU                  15-2, 22-3

3. Hawai’i              12-4, 22-4

4. UC Irvine           11-5, 17-6

————————————-

5. UCLA                 10-6, 17-7

6. Pepperdine         7-9, 9-10

7. Stanford             7-9, 12-11

8. USC                   7-10, 13-13

—————————————

9. Santa Barbara    5-12, 10-15

10. CSUN               5-12, 12-14

11. UC San Diego   3-13, 7-17

12. Cal Baptist       2-15, 7-20

There are four matches Friday, including BYU at UCSB again, No. 4 Hawai’i at No. 6 UCLA, No. 9 Stanford at No. 5 UC Irvine and No. 8 Pepperdine at UC San Diego.

A look at the standings above lets you know that plenty is up for grabs, but while UCSD, UCSB, and CSUN are out of it, this weekend marks the end of an era. When UCSB plays BYU Friday,  UCSD plays host to Stanford on Saturday and CSUN plays at Long Beach, they will have played their last MPSF matches. They, along with Hawai’l, Long Beach, and UCI are moving to the newly formed Big West men’s conference next season.

In USC’s 25-18, 25-21, 23-25, 25-22 win over Cal Baptist, senior Lucas Yoder had 17 kills and senior Andy Benesh had 13 kills while hitting .722 to go with six blocks. Gianluca Grasso added 12 kills for Troy, while Lucas Lossone had nine kills and Vinnie Rios had seven digs.

Luis Palos led CBU with 18 kills while hitting .536 and he had four blocks. Enrique Garcia had 10 kills and hit .471, Caleb Miller had four blocks and both Rohit Paul and Emmett Enriques had seven digs each.

The same teams play again Saturday at Cal Baptist.

BYU won 24-26, 25-23, 25-16, 25-15 as Jake Langlois had 13 kills and hit .500. He also had three aces. Price Jarman added nine kills and hit .750 and Brenden Sander and Tim Dobbert had eight kills each. Sander had four of his team’s 13 aces.

UCSB got nine kills from Jacob Delson, but he hit minus .037 and had six of his team’s 19 service errors. Keenan Sanders had eight kills and Corey Chavers and Connor Drake seven each.

MIVA: Lewis, Loyola, McKendree win

Second-ranked Ohio State, which plays at Lindenwood on Friday, has the top seed in the tournament clinched, No. 7 Lewis is second and Grand Canyon has third.

No. 10 Loyola and No. 13 Ball State are battling for the 4 and 5 spots and they play each other Saturday. But Ball State would have to sweep in a rout to get the fourth spot.

The eighth spot will go to either Quincy or Fort Wayne, who are tied at 2-13 in league play, split with each other in five both times with each team scoring exactly the same number of points after those two matches. Quincy plays host to Ohio State and Fort Wayne has Lewis. And whoever finishes eighth plays its first-round match at Ohio State and whoever finishes seventh goes to Lewis.

Meanwhile, on Thursday night, Lewis won at Ball State 23-25, 27-25, 25-20, 25-20. Mitch Perinar had 16 kills and hit .333. He also had eight blocks as the Flyers improved to 21-6, 12-3 in the MIVA. Ryan Coenen added 15 kills and three blocks. Jacob Schmiegelt had six kills and eight blocks.

Ball State, which dropped to 17-9, 8-7, got a career-high 13 kills from freshman Blake Reardon, who also had nine digs an ace and a solo block. Matt Szews added 12 kills and seven digs and Matt Walsh had 10 kills, hit .471 and had two aces.

Loyola won at Fort Wayne 25-18, 25-17, 22-25, 25-23 to improved to 16-10, 9-6, while the Mastodons dropped to 5-22, 2-13.

Ben Plaisted led with 15 kills and hit .417. Loyola teammates Collin Mahan and Jeff Jendryk had 11 kills each. Jendryk, who hit .733, had six blocks.

Alex Dickmann had 12 kills to lead Fort Wayne. Richie Diedrich had 10 kills and hit .714.

McKendree beat Quincy 25-22, 23-25, 25-21, 25-22 and is 10-18, 5-10. Quincy is 7-20, 2013.

EIVA: Busy schedule Friday, Saturday

Penn State (16-9, 8-2) goes to Sacred Heart (12-9, 5-5) on Friday, while Saint Francis (11-14, 6-4) plays at Harvard (9-10, 6-4) and NJIT (13-9, 6-5) goes to George Mason (12-11, 5-5). On Saturday, Penn State goes to Harvard, Princeton (10-12, 6-5) plays at Mason and SFU goes to Sacred Heart.

ConfCarolinas: Two teams have been eliminated, winless Pfeiffer and Emmanuel, which is still making the transition from Division II and is not eligible for postseason play.

Three teams are vying for first place, Barton (19-5, 15-2), King (25-3, 14-2) and Mount Olive 16-8, 14-3). Limestone (11-9, 11-5) has a lock on fourth place. Erskine (3-19, 3-13) is going to get the eighth spot in the league tournament. Which leaves Lees-McRae (9-15, 7-9), North Greenville (8-16, 7-9) and Belmont Abbey (6-19, 7-10) battling for spots 5, 6, and 7.

On Friday, Erskine goes to Belmont Abbey and Emmanuel plays at Pfeiffer.

NCAA beach: Every team in the AVCA poll except No. 12 Grand Canyon plays either Friday or Saturday or both.

Top-ranked and unbeaten USC is home for Washington and No. 15 Arizona State on Friday and then Saturday plays in the USAV Beach Collegiate Challenge at Manhattan Beach. The Women of Troy will play Loyola Marymount, ASU again, and Saint Mary’s.

No. 2 Pepperdine is in Hawai’i, where the Waves play Cal Poly and the No. 6 Sandbows on Friday. Saturday, the Waves play the same teams again.

No. 3 UCLA is in Santa Monica on Saturday and plays Washington and Concordia and then takes on No. 5 Long Beach State and No. 8 Arizona on Saturday. LBSU plays Washington and Arizona on Saturday and also Concordia on Sunday.

Fourth-ranked Florida State is home for TCU on Friday and No. 14 Florida Atlantic and No.11 South Carolina on Saturday. No. 10 Georgia State is also there, playing TCU, FAU, No. 13 Florida International and South Carolina.

LSU, ranked No. 7, goes to the Houston Baptist Invitational and plays Texas A&M Corpus Christi and HBU on Saturday and then Tulane and Central Arkansas on Sunday.

No. 9 Stetson is home Friday and Saturday for Florida Gulf Coast, Coastal Carolina, and Mercer.

Columbus State drops volleyball: The women’s program, which played in the Division II Peach Belt Conference, was eliminated “effective immediately,” according to a school news release:

“Our current budget projections and realities facing the overall athletics program for FY ’18 make it now financially necessary to adjust our sport offerings. Based on those projections, we have made the difficult decision to discontinue our volleyball program,” said Todd Reeser, CSU’s athletic director.
To minimize the educational and financial impact on the effected student-athletes, returning volleyball athletes will have their scholarships honored at their current equivalencies to allow them to continue their education at Columbus State University, unless that athlete chooses to transfer to another program.  We are also working with impacted coaches and staff to match them with other employment opportunities.
“While various other options have been considered and reviewed, eliminating one sport helps us toward meeting the financial targets while also minimizing the number of student-athletes impacted,” added Reeser. “Across the board cuts to each of our programs would only reduce the quality of all programs, as well as impact the competitiveness and overall student-athlete experience we have become accustomed to achieving and providing.”

Columbus State was 15-14 last season, 6-12 in the Peach Belt.