NCAA Beach Volleyball Championship
 | |
| Sport | College beach volleyball |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2016 |
| No. of teams | 8 teams tbd |
| Country |
 United States |
| Most recent champion(s) | TBD |
| Official website | http://www.ncaa.com/sports/beach-volleyball |
The NCAA Beach Volleyball Championship will be, starting in 2016, a NCAA-sanctioned tournament to determine the national champions of collegiate women's beach volleyball. This will be a National Collegiate Championship featuring teams from Division I, Division II and Division III; it will be the 90th, and newest, NCAA championship event.[1] It is the first new NCAA championship to be created since the NCAA Men's Division III Volleyball Championship in 2012, and the first for women since the NCAA Bowling Championship in 2004.
History
The championship was approved by the NCAA Convention during the fall of 2015, and a committee was selected to determine the tournament's organizational structure. Before 2015, sand volleyball had been one of the NCAA's "emerging sports" (which included women's ice hockey, bowling, rowing, and water polo in the past). As such, a separate championship had been contested annually, since 2012, by the American Volleyball Coaches Association. As of 2015, over 50 schools (from Divisions I, II, and III) had sponsored sand volleyball, ten more than the total number of required programs.
The sport's name was changed from "sand volleyball" to the more usual "beach volleyball" in June 2015, and the committee overseeing the sport is now named the NCAA Beach Volleyball Committee.[2]
Structure
The championship will be held yearly in May and will consist of eight teams playing in a double-elimination style tournament under standard beach volleyball rules. All matches will consist of five sets, with each team needing to win three sets to advance. Individual championships will not be held.
It has not yet been announced whether there will be automatic qualifiers, but as of the Fall of 2015, five conferences sponsor beach volleyball, all with at least six members — the minimum number for a conference to qualify for an automatic bid to an NCAA championship tournament:
- Atlantic Sun Conference (6 members)
- Big West Conference (6 members)
- Coastal Collegiate Sports Association (8 members)
- Pac-12 Conference (8 members)
- West Coast Conference (7 members)
Champions
| NCAA Beach Volleyball Championship | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Site (Host) |
Host Venue | Final | Third Place Final / Other participants | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Winner | Score | Runner-up | Third Place | Score | Fourth Place | |||||||||||||||||||
| 2016 | Gulf Shores, AL (UAB) |
Gulf Shores Public Beach | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2017 | Gulf Shores, AL (UAB) |
Gulf Shores Public Beach | ||||||||||||||||||||||
See also
- NCAA Men's Indoor Volleyball Championships (National Collegiate, Division III)
- NCAA Women's Indoor Volleyball Championships (Division I, Division II, Division III)
- List of NCAA women's beach volleyball programs
References
- ↑ "NCAA DII, DIII membership approves Sand Volleyball as 90th championship". NCAA News. NCAA.com. Retrieved May 30, 2015.
- ↑ "NCAA’s newest championship will be called beach volleyball". NCAA. June 30, 2015. Retrieved July 2, 2015.
External links
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