Championship History – Mid-Atlantic Region

This is the third 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. Oh, the first one was on the Central Region and the second was the Great Lakes Region.

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.

We find ourselves in the Mid-Atlantic today and I’m worried my brain may explode since there are like 100 conferences in this region. (Narrator’s voice: There are only 8.) The region also has a UAA team in Carnegie Mellon, which I’ll cover when we get to the South Region. There is also an independent school in Trinity Washington, which I’ll ignore. Sorry. (Narrator’s voice: He’s not sorry.) Of the 100 conferences (Narrator’s voice: 8) there are Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference (AMCC), Atlantic East, Capital Athletic Conference (CAC), Centennial Conference, Colonial States Athletic Conference (CSAC), Landmark Conference, Middle Atlantic Conference (MAC) Commonwealth and MAC Freedom. If you just finished the Great Lakes Region article then you’ll notice that these conferences are a bit younger in their formation.

Starting with the AMCC, which was established in 1997, and we find that the conference website has 23 years of data. Now, if you are like me then you don’t know much about this conference. I do find it interesting that a conference named after the Alleghany Mountains doesn’t have Alleghany College in it. I will say that what I’ve enjoyed the most about this conference in the past is that they have schools that bring their bands to the conference championship matches. I want to say it was Penn State Behrend or Pitt-Bradford that do it. Makes the live stream more fun. As far as overall championships, we have Frostburg State leading with 10 titles. If you are not familiar with them it’s because I guess they grew tired of the winning and jumped up to DII. In second, we have Penn State Behrend with 5 titles followed by Pitt-Bradford with 3. Both Franciscan University and Penn State Altoona each have 2 titles and finally we have Medaille College with one. In the last 5-years, Behrend and Bradford each have 2 titles with Franciscan the other one. So, the AMCC is one of these conferences that only get the conference winner into the NCAA Tournament and, being in a competitive region, are usually one and done. In fact, none of the current members of the conference have won a match in the NCAA Tournament. On the flip side, it’s nice to see that this conference has a number of competitive team fighting for that automatic qualifier spot.

(Off topic a bit but I felt the need to add it here regarding my feelings about these types of conferences. When my daughter played and I was educated on how the DIII system worked for NCAA Tournament selection, I hated these types of conferences. By “type” I mean a conference that simply gets one school into the tournament through the automatic qualifier but are seldom if ever competitive once they get to the tournament. I felt that these teams take spots away from more deserving schools by reducing the at-large pool and it always made me angry. I carried that feeling through the beginning of this blog but have definitely changed my mind since then. Not all schools or conferences are created equally. Either through athletic priorities, location, finances or a slew of other factors. In the end, every school by supporting this great sport puts volleyball student-athletes on the court and each of these wonderful athletes should have something to strive towards. A conference championship is great but the true prize is that spot in the NCAA Tournament and a chance at the national title. Far be it from me to deny that experience. Are better teams left at home on selection day? Of course. But each of these teams had their chances to secure their spot and there are still 19 or 20 at-large spots available. With that said, my anger has only increased when the NCAA Selection Committee screws up the at-large selections! So, yes, I still have anger issues, but I feel it’s properly targeted now. Thank you for your time on this.)

As far as stability, there has been a little movement in the schools since this conference formed. Franciscan has just moved over to the PAC this year and D’Youville made the jump to DII, also this year. Four of the founding six schools remain and four other schools added later have all be in the conference for at least 14 years now. The AMCC is really an example of a conference that flies under the radar if you follow other regions, unless you like bands at conference championships.

The Atlantic East Conference is our newest conference in DIII and has been operating without an automatic qualifier but that changes whenever we get volleyball up and running again. They were established in 2018 and consist of 7 member schools. One hiccup facing the conference is that Wesley College has been acquired by Delaware State, which is an NCAA DI program. I’m not sure it’s been officially announced what will happen to the Wesley sports programs after next year but I think the assumption is that they will no longer function as a DIII program. It will be interesting to see if the conference holds steady with 6 members or looks to add. With only 2 years of volleyball to discuss, I can simply say that Marymount has won both years and has actually earned the Pool B (Independent) bid each time. With the Atlantic East getting the automatic qualifier, it really should eliminate the need for the Pool B bid in the immediate future as there are just a couple of true independent schools left in the nation. (For those that don’t know, the NCAA uses a formula to determine if there are enough independent schools to warrant a Pool B bid. Anything under 7 or 8 independents, I believe, means no Pool B bid.)

I’m a little hesitant to step into the CAC because schools have been leaving this conference, well, as if they had stepped in something themselves. It’s a shame really because the conference does have three excellent volleyball programs in Mary Washington, Salisbury and Christopher Newport. The conference was established in 1989 and the conference website has 29 years of championship data. Salisbury is the leader in volleyball titles with 8 followed by Christopher Newport with 6. What’s impressive about Christopher Newport is that they’ve only been in the conference 7 years so you can see how their admittance has sort of upset the volleyball balance in the conference. Six other schools have championships in volleyball but only one remains in the conference today. We’ve got Gallaudet (5 and now in the NEAC), Catholic (3/Landmark), Mary Washington (2), Groucher (1/Landmark), York (1/Commonwealth) and Frostburg State (1/NCAA DII). In the last 5-years, Christopher Newport has 4 championships with Mary Washington winning the other. There were actually two additional championships won by Gallaudet but that were later vacated due to rules violations.

Today, the CAC is the nomad conference of DIII as in order to keep their automatic qualifier they absorbed/merged/acquired the American Collegiate Athletic Association (ACAA), which brought in an additional 6 schools (although new member Pine Manor will leave after this year). What makes this joining really interesting is that the member schools now stretch from the west to the east coast of the nation. Because of this, the conference has announced that they will not play a conference schedule, which could get them sideways with the NCAA. Prior to the merger, the ACAA was trying to get an automatic qualifier under the same format and the NCAA was moving to create rules that would prevent it. It will be interesting to see what develops out of all of this. I should also note that the CAC will most likely change their name at some point to reflect the merger. Because this conference has undergone so much upheaval and it includes two schools from the West Region, let me list out the current member schools and their home cities. We have the original three schools mentioned above that will be staying and they come out of the Maryland and Virginia area.  There are two schools that are current members in St. Mary’s (MD) and Southern Virginia that will be leaving after this year. We then have the schools coming in from the ACAA – UC Santa Cruz (California), Finlandia (Michigan), Mills College (California), Mount Mary (Wisconsin), Pine Manor (Massachusetts) and Pratt (New York). Quite a road trip if the conference had to play a conference schedule. I guess I’ll leave you with this. If all of these conferences were part of a soap opera (and frankly, at times, the NCAA feels that way), the CAC would be the evil doctor bent on world domination secretly in love with the main character but she’s really unknowingly his twin sister. I mean if the CAC were a year, they would be 2020. Maybe I should stop before I get into trouble with this joke series. In truth, the CAC will be a strong volleyball conference but they are hurt simply because they are the last person to a dance where everyone has already partnered up.  

Less drama can be found in the Centennial Conference where you will also find our defending national champion in Johns Hopkins. The Centennial was established in 1981 as a football only conference but was changed to include all sports in 1992. Therefore, it’s not surprising that the conference website has only 27 years of volleyball championship information. Gettysburg College is the leader in total volleyball titles won in the conference with 11. It was interesting to see that there were two years where there was a three-way tie for the regular season championship in this conference in years where no tournament was played. Gettysburg, Franklin & Marshall and McDaniel were the same teams involved both times. Back to the rundown and in second is Johns Hopkins with 7 titles followed by Franklin & Marshall with 6. Haverford has 4 titles and McDaniel is currently at 3. No schools (who have won) with less than 3 titles, which I also found interesting for a conference with this much history behind it. In the last 5-years, it’s been about Johns Hopkins who has 4 titles while McDaniel was able to grab the other one. I mentioned that Johns Hopkins is our defending national champion and that happens to be the only national title from this conference and the first we’ve encountered from the Mid-Atlantic (although there are a couple more below).

As for stability, I’m not sure there is a better picture of it than the Centennial. They had 8 original football only schools that remain in the conference to this day. When they moved to an all-sports conference in 1992, they brought in three additional schools that also remain to this day. No defections and no need to add schools, I assume. Quite impressive in this age of conference shuffling.

Stability is certainly an issue for the CSAC, which was established in 1992 as the Pennsylvania Athletic Conference. When the Landmark Conference was established in 2005, it started a major shakeup that indirectly impacted this conference and caused the name change in 2008. Of the 12 members at the time, only two (Cedar Crest and Rosemont) remain at this time. In fairness, another shakeup a couple of years ago took out about half the teams so it wasn’t just the Landmark formation that caused all of the teams to look for a different conference. Since 2007, the CSAC has added 8 schools so they have definitely learned to zag when others were zigging. The conference website has 28-years of championship information and to just further stress how dynamic this conference has been, only one school has won a conference championship and is still in the conference.

Enough preamble as we have Eastern leading the conference with 10 titles. You can find Eastern now in the Commonwealth Conference. They are followed by Cabrini with 8 titles, including 3 in the last 5-years. Cabrini now plays in the Atlantic East Conference. DeSales (formally Allentown) is next with 3 titles and they can be found in the Freedom Conference. Neumann (and how can you possible say that school name without Jerry Seinfeld’s voice in your ear) won 3 titles before moving on to the Atlantic East. Defending champion and two-time winner Notre Dame is next with those 2 titles and is the trivia answer as to which champion still remains. We then have Misericordia (Freedom) and Marywood (Atlantic East) with one each. Time will tell how well the CSAC can perform but hopefully the school movement that has plagued it will now stop.

The Juniata Conference was established…wait. Whoops. It’s the Landmark Conference!?! Seems like the Juniata Conference would be a better name if it was just based on volleyball. Whatever the name, this conference was established in 2005 and have named a single volleyball champion for the last 13-years. By “single” champion I mean the same team for each of those 13-years. You guessed it, Juniata. With nothing much more to say, I guess I’ll break protocol and mention that Susquehanna (another great school name) has finished second 10-times with Scranton twice and Catholic once. Despite the conference’s young age, there have been some changes to its membership. Merchant Marine was a founding member but left for the Skyline. Washington & Jefferson joined in 2010 but left 6-years later. Other than that, not much has changed except for the addition of Marywood and Elizabethtown in the last 10-years. Back to Juniata and they have two national championships to their name although they were both before they moved to the Landmark Conference. They also have a slew of second place finishes nationally and they really are considered one of the national powers in DIII volleyball.

The final two conferences are from the Middle Atlantic Conference (MAC), which has a unique story. It was established in 1912 and was founded primarily as a track association. It’s had a number of schools as members and really there are too many to even go through. One interesting note is that they had a big reduction to their numbers back in 1974 when the NCAA created the three divisions. Two years later, the MAC became a purely DIII conference. In 1992, another large exodus occurred when schools left to form the Centennial Conference. We haven’t talked about the USA South Conference but just know they have (I think) 18 members started next year but they only get one automatic qualifier bid. The conference is split into two divisions but, again, only one champion gets the bid. As I understand it, for them to have two automatic qualifiers they would need to split into two different conferences with different leadership. This is essentially what the MAC did in 1999, creating the MAC Commonwealth and the MAC Freedom Conferences. Now, having said all of that, I actually don’t see separate leadership for both conferences in the MAC so either I’m wrong (highly likely) or some other rule is in effect here. Just to blow your mind a bit more, there is actually a third MAC conference, which is just the MAC. It consists of members from both the Commonwealth and the Freedom in sports that don’t have enough member schools sponsoring them (like football). Like I said, there is a unique story here and one I’m done touching on for fear of further mistakes.

Let’s focus a bit on the MAC Commonwealth and I have to start off by saying that figuring out the champions is a mess. Separate champions (Commonwealth and Freedom) started in 2000 so that part is easy. The MAC had one champion via the tournament decided between 1993 and 1999. So, during this time there was a Commonwealth and Freedom champion who then played for the MAC championship. I will be using this single champion in my numbers. Prior to 1993 (back to 1976) there was just a MAC so only one champion there, too. For these teams, however, I’ll leave them in the MAC Commonwealth rundown because, as you’ll see, Juniata won most of these and they were in the Commonwealth. In fact, do you know when the last time Juniata didn’t win a conference championship? How about 1980. That’s 39* straight years of conference championships! Back to the MAC Commonwealth and it shouldn’t surprise that Juniata leads in titles with 26. As you read above, they have since moved on to the Landmark Conference. Second place goes to Stevenson with 8 titles including the last 5. If you want to know which team was the last one to beat Juniata in a conference final then it was Western Maryland (now McDaniel) back in 1980. They finished with the first 5 titles in the MAC and now play in the Centennial Conference. Lebanon Valley has 4 and Elizabethtown has 1 (they now play in the Landmark).

(* – I tweeted out that they had won 38-straight but I think my math was wrong. I’m an idiot.) (Narrator’s voice: Yup.)

As far as stability in the MAC Commonwealth, you can tell by the movement of the past champions that there has been changes in this conference. Only half (4) of the original teams are still in this conference. In the last 10-years, the conference has been able to add to their ranks and the pickups of Stevenson (2012) and Eastern (switched over from the Freedom this past year) are particular good from a volleyball perspective.  

Over to the MAC Freedom and it’s really been dominated by Eastern who has 11 titles and 4 in the last 5 years. As mentioned above, they have been switched over to the MAC Commonwealth this year. The defending champions are Stevens who just came into the conference last year so just one total title for them. In between we have Scranton with 3 (now play in the Landmark), Lycoming with 2, King’s with 2 and DeSales with one. Fewer titles than the MAC Commonwealth because, again, Juniata dominated the MAC in all forms since 1981 until they left. I won’t really get into the stability with this one. Nothing great to note except that it is interesting that the two MAC conferences seem to be able to switch schools when they want. In the end, the MAC is just a unique conference in the DIII system.  

Stepping back and looking at the Mid-Atlantic as a whole and we can see that they have 3 national championships – Juniata with 2 and Johns Hopkins. The region has really been dominated for decades by Juniata regardless of the conference they were in. Obviously, Johns Hopkins has made a name for themselves with their title from last year. Specifically looking at the last 5-years and the standouts from this region include Christopher Newport, Mary Washington, Stevenson, Eastern and Stevens. I think we also have to pay attention to a couple of teams in the new Atlantic East – Marymount (lost in the 2019 Trinity Regional final) and Cabrini. Looking at the conferences and it’s a bit interesting that we seem to be missing some depth. No telling what will happen to the CAC but they do have a good foundation with Christopher Newport and Mary Washington. Centennial has Johns Hopkins and some other good teams (including Franklin & Marshall) but I think there are still more levels of play that these teams need to climb to provide that consistent depth. Oddly, the Landmark may be the deepest with Juniata, Susquehanna and Scranton but Juniata sort of hides the other teams. Of course, when talking about the better teams in the region, we also have to remember that Carnegie Mellon (out of the UAA) plays in the Mid-Atlantic, too. Overall, some really good teams in this region but the conferences are lacking the depth the we see in other regions. We sort of see the result of that when at-large bids are allocated. The Mid-Atlantic will get their share but we (or is it just me) always seem to raise an eyebrow if they get more than a couple.  

Next up is the Midwest Region, which is good because there just seems to be no one out there in the DIII universe that knows anything about this region. (Narrator’s voice: That was a joke.)