Hope College has been selected to host an eight-team NCAA Division III
volleyball regional tournament at the DeVos Fieldhouse on Nov. 12-14.
Six of the eight regional sites for the 62-team tournament field were
announced today by the NCAA. The participating teams, pairings and
times will be announced next Monday, Nov. 9.
There will be four quarterfinal matches on Thursday, the semi-finals
on Friday and the championship match on Saturday evening. The regional
winners will advance to the Division III championships to be held Nov.
19-21 at the Tony DeCarlo Varsity Center in University Heights, Ohio.
This is the first time Hope has been selected to host an NCAA
volleyball regional. Hope has been host the last two years of the
Division III women's basketball final four.
"We are excited to have this opportunity for Hope, the Holland
community and west Michigan region," said athletic director Eva Dean
Folkert who will serve as tournament manager, "We are fortunate to
have a growing base of great volleyball fans who we are confident will
embrace this outstanding tournament."
Last year Hope ranked second in the nation in Division III volleyball
home attendance with an average of 550 fans per match. This season the
Flying Dutch have averaged 685 fans per home match. And just a week
ago a new Division III regular season attendance record was set (2,725
fans) when Hope won at rival Calvin.
The Flying Dutch, champions of the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic
Association, are the top-ranked team in the Great Lakes region heading
into this weekend's conference tournament which determines the MIAA's
automatic qualifier to the post-season tournament.
The other regional sites announced by the NCAA are Junita College,
Huntingdon, Pa.; New York University, New York, N.Y.; Tufts
University, Medford, Mass.; Washington University, St. Louis, Mo. and
UW-Oshkosh, Wisc. Two more sites will be announced this weekend.