Championship History – Great Lakes Region

This is the second of eight articles where I will look into each DIII volleyball conference. Here is the preamble of what I wrote in the first one in case you missed it or just want to skip it.

This blog has primarily catered to the West Region but I’ve tried to open it up at times to mixed results. One problem I have when I do this is just the amount of data/stats/stuff that is out there. I get bogged down and who wants a bogged blog? My latest project was suffering the same fate but I’ve decided to cut it up in pieces and then spread it out over time. What is this latest project? Well, if you are reading this then you are most likely a parent of a DIII volleyball player or someone that has a connection with DIII in some way. Maybe a player or a coach or a former parent or just another crazy that loves DIII volleyball. One thing we probably all have in common is that we primarily know what we see and are around, which makes our DIII knowledge regionalized. Even in my case, I’m always amazed I can stumble across a DIII school that I had no idea was a DIII school (or even a school). Heck, there are conferences I scratch my head on. So, I wanted to become more familiar with the conferences and the schools that play in those conferences. My thought was to look at the past conference winners across the nation and sort of get an idea of the powers within those conferences. Maybe also look at the past powers. As I went along, I also discovered that I was gaining insight into the migration of schools between the conferences. Also, as I went along, I got bogged down because there is just a lot of conferences and schools out there and some are not as good at archiving the data as I had hoped. So, this will be my first attempt at carving the data up and trying to present the data in a, hopefully, timely manner.

Today we visit the Great Lakes Region, which consists of the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference (HCAC), the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAA), the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC), the Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC) and the Presidents’ Athletic Conference (PAC). We also have Case Western Reserve University out of this region, which play in the UAA (write-up to come in the South Region article).

We start with the HCAC and let me just say that their archiving of past champions stink. Maybe they have what I need somewhere but for now I will investigate each year’s worth of results individually for what I need. Ugh. The HCAC was established in 1987 as the Indiana Collegiate Athletic Conference only to change their name in 1998 with the addition of schools from Ohio. The conference now consists of schools from those two states plus Kentucky. The volleyball data that I could find on the conference website only goes back to 2004 so that’s not great but I am secretly happy that it saves me 17 years of research. (Well. Not 17-years of research. It’s really an undetermined amount of time where I had to research the results of 17 years. So, yeah. 17-years of research saved!)

Since 1987, the conference has seen DePauw leave (now in the NCAC) and Rose-Hulman leave but they returned after a 17-year absence. They have also brought in Bluffton, Mount St. Joseph, Defiance, Transylvania and Earlham since the great name change. Another project that I’ve started but haven’t finished is creating NCAA DIII Tournament backets. My work can be found, here. While doing that work, one of the teams I came across quite a lot was Mt. St. Joseph (who play in the HCAC). Spoiler alert; they’ve been in the tournament 12 years and have a respectable record in those 12-years. With my data only going back to 2004, Mt. St. Joseph leads the HCAC in championships with 6. Since we know they’ve been in the tournament 12 times, it’s safe to assume they have been the historical power from this conference. It’s interesting to note, however, that they have not won in the last 5-years with their last championship occurring in 2012. More recently, we have Bluffton with 5 championships and two from the last 5-years. They are followed by Hanover (2), Rose-Hulman (2) and Transylvania (1). Each of these three teams have won a championship in the last 5-years with Transylvania being your defending HCAC champions. So, this conference has a number of programs that are competitive although in my research I didn’t see an at-large team chosen from this conference. My perception of the Heartland has always been that it’s a good but not great volleyball conference. I always had respect for these teams but always felt like they would fall short to ranked teams. Now, Transylvania sort of changed that thinking with a great season last year. Can they continue that run and will their play inspire even more from the other teams in this conference? It’s not like the Great Lakes Region needs more great teams, but it’s something to watch with the HCAC.

Ah. The MIAA. Calvin and Hope and then…? Well, let’s see. The MIAA was established in…wait for it…1888! It’s the oldest college athletic conference in the United States. Pretty cool. Despite the name, the conference did invite schools outside of Michigan back in 1997. It’s probably a testament to their age that they felt like they didn’t have to change their conference name. (I mean isn’t that the great thing about getting old? You just get to a point where more things become insignificant in your life. I feel the MIAA on this one.) Their volleyball championship information goes back to 1972 (48-years of data) and I’m quite certain that we won’t see another conference match this feat. With all due apologies to a coach in Oregon that was Texas bred and Hope educated; Calvin holds the most MIAA championships with 28 (3 shared). Hope is second by some distance with 9, followed by Kalamazoo (6 with 1 shared) and then Adrian and Alma with 4 each (two are shared by Alma). Remember that I count championships as regular season when no tournaments were played and then, when they were played, only the tournament champion counts. In the last 5-years, Calvin has 4 championships (and are the defending conference champions) with Hope holding the other one. The last non-Calvin or Hope champion was Alma in 2003. This conference has also given us 4 national champions (3 by Calvin and 1 by Hope) and all were in the last 19-years.

Yeah, the MIAA with respect to volleyball is really all about Calvin and Hope right now and there doesn’t seem to be a change to this dynamic coming up. Personally, I’d like to see Kalamazoo break into this pairing just because it’s a fun name to say. The MIAA archive is a good one and one of the stats from there is all-time MIAA winning percentages. Calvin is at 0.875 while Hope is at 0.773. The only other above 0.500 program is Alma at 0.600. It also notes that Olivet has never beaten Calvin or Hope in their regular season. Yikes! As far as conference movement, the big changes came in in 1997 with the name change and the years following. Five schools were brought in but only St. Mary’s (IN) and Trine remain. Albion and Olivet were original members but Olivet did leave the conference for 12-years.

The NCAC has always been about Wittenberg in my mind with apologies to the DePauw faithful. In truth the NCAC has a number of good programs but that Wittenberg shadow is quite large. The conference was established in 1983 and their conference website has data that goes back to 1984 or 36 years. Wittenberg joined in 1988 and really has been the dominate team winning 24 championships in that time including 4 in the last 5-years. I mentioned DePauw but it surprised me to see that they have only won one championship and that was last year. (This is about the time I discovered that they only joined the conference in 2011. See, we’re learning here!) They do have a number of second place finishes when you go through all of the tournament results for the last 10-years. Second in the conference in titles is Alleghany with 5 and then we have Kenyon (2) and Ohio Wesleyan (2). Solo championships have gone to Wooster, Hiram and, as I mentioned, DePauw. This conference has also given us a national champion in Wittenberg back in 2011. Being a West Region fan, I would not be doing my job if I didn’t mention that Wittenberg was also the runner-up against the last two West Region national champions. Sorry. Not sorry. I will say during my daughter’s playing days, the NCAC would always seem to have three or four 20-match winners but that hasn’t been the case the last four years. Last year, the NCAC didn’t have a 20-match winner at all for the first time in their conference history! This is something to certainly watch for with this conference. It should also be pointed out that Wittenberg lost their iconic head coach two years ago so who’s to say how this has impacted them. With that said, the Tigers have made the Tournament during those two years so what do I know?

As far as conference stability the NCAC is still strong. They still have 6 of their charter members and really have only lost two schools to other conferences (Case Western Reserve to the UAA and Earlham to the HCAC). Again, the NCAC has always been a power conference to me but it’s interesting to see if this 2019 downturn is just a bump in the road. Long-term I wouldn’t bet against Wittenberg, DePauw, Hiram and the rest.

The hits just keep coming with this strong region as we get to the OAC, which has a number of strong schools. The conference was established in 1902 making it the third oldest in the United States. Unlike some of the more stable conferences in this region, the OAC has had some turnover over the last 100+ years. With that said, only Wilmington (OH), who joined in 2000 doesn’t have more than 20 years in the OAC. The conference website does have championship data back to 1984 so that’s 36 years of championship data to go through. What I found interesting from this conference was that originally, I thought it was pretty competitive and any of about 5 schools could win the conference from year-to-year. When I started going through the NCAA Brackets, however, it was clear that Ohio Northern was dominate “back in the day”. Now that I’ve gone through the data, both are true. Ohio Northern does have 21 championships including 3 in the last 5-years and are the current defending champions. There is a big drop-off to the rest of the schools where there is a pack of 7 each with at least one championship. In second is Muskingum with 5 titles followed by Mount Union with 3. Two schools (Heidelberg and Otterbein) who both have recent championships are tied with 2 titles and then we have John Carroll, Baldwin-Wallace and Capital each with one title. Despite the one-sided tally, in the last 10 years there have been four different schools that have won titles so things are much more competitive in the OAC of late. To prove my point, each of the last two years have seen the conference have six 20+ win teams. Last year I felt that this conference, despite its success, was overlooked because they “only” got three teams into the tournament. I think the best thing I can say about the OAC is that they are the deepest conference in one of the best volleyball regions in the nation.

It’s kind of interesting to look at the history of this conference and the past members. Schools like Ohio State, Cincinnati and Miami of Ohio have been members. Staying in DIII and we see Ohio Wesleyan, Case Western Reserve, Wittenberg and Hiram all did time in the OAC. If you want the answer to an impossible Jeopardy question then just know that Heidelberg is the oldest member of the OAC still in the conference today.

The fifth and final conference from this region is the PAC. It’s fair to say that this is the conference that gets overlooked in this region just because the rest are just really strong. To be honest, prior to this research I couldn’t name you one school that resided in the PAC now that Thomas More has moved to NAIA. The PAC was established in 1955 with most of their schools coming out of Western Pennsylvania. The conference website has a nice little tally of what I need for this article so big shout out to them! The overall leader in volleyball titles is (surprising to me) Grove City with 9 although the last one was in 2001. They are followed by Thomas Moore (8) who did their damage over the last 15-years and still have 2 titles from the last 5-years. Washington & Jefferson is third with 6 titles followed by Waynesburg and Westminster (PA) who each have 4. Westminster is your defending champion from the PAC. Rounding out the conference titles list is Bethany (2) and then Geneva and John Carroll who each had 1. Bethany has obtained their two titles within the last 5-years. John Carroll was mentioned in the OAC write-up so know that they moved on in 1988 after being a founding member of the PAC.

The PAC has about half of their schools who have been accepted in the last 20 years to the conference. So, a little movement but for the most part they seem like they are in a good place now with their current lineup. I mentioned that Case Western Reserve moved from the NCAC to the UAA but did you know that Case Tech and Western Reserve were both charter members of the PAC, merged fully in 1970 and then continued to play in the PAC before moving to the NCAC in 1984? I thought not.  

Speaking of Case Western Reserve, we’ll dive into their conference (UAA) in a later article.

Prior to this research, when I thought of the Great Lakes Region I would start with Calvin. With the number of at-large bids awarded to this region over the past few years, it’s obvious that the region is more than just one school. You probably have to start with the Heartland and the PAC as the base of the region. Good conferences that sort of get lost in the volleyball success that exists in the other three conferences. Still, the Heartland had Transylvania really step up last year and the PAC always seems to have two or three schools finish the year with 20 or more wins. Certainly not too shabby. As I mentioned above, the OAC has got to be the deepest conference in the region and just a tough title to win right now with how their schools are performing. With the NCAC you have Wittenberg and a number of other really good programs. And, of course, with the MIAA you have Calvin and Hope. It’s quite obvious why the Great Lakes Region is so strong. Overall, 5 national champions have all come from this region and they have all been in the last 19-years.

Next up is the Mid-Atlantic Region and their eight (Yikes!) conferences.