CWPA Releases 2011 Women's Varsity Western Division Schedule
BRIDGEPORT, Pa. -- The Collegiate Water Polo Association has released the compilation schedule for the 2011 Women's Varsity Western Division.
Unlike past seasons in which the league established the schedule, the division teams scheduled their own head-to-head meetings during the season and established the slate of contests which will decide the division race.
Further, unlike the North-South-West format of old, the division champion will be decided based on regular season results rather than a championship tournament at the end of the regular season.
The new format, established for only one season and brought on in the aftermath by the split of the league prior to the 2010 season into Division I and Division I subsets with each side of the conference competing for their own Eastern Championship, creates some unique and new match-ups in the Division I league structure.
The University of Michigan, Indiana University, Mercyhurst College and Gannon University remain from the old Western Division bracket. However, perennial contenders Hartwick College and Bucknell University also join the Western Division this year to create a bracket which features three teams (Michigan, Indiana, Hartwick) ranked in the National Preseason Top 20.
In addition to the new format, the division results will not decide which teams advance to the CWPA Eastern Championship with a chance at capturing the league's automatic berth to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Championship as the six Western Division teams and the six squads in the Southern Division (Princeton University, University of Maryland, Salem International University, Brown University, Harvard University and George Washington University) will all advance to the championship for the first-ever, all-inclusive Eastern Championship.
The seedings for the CWPA Eastern Championship will be decided by a vote based on the cumulative results of the teams in the division against one another and versus the league members in the other division (Western vs. Western and Southern vs. Western).
| University of University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. | ||||
| Friday, March 11, 2011 | ||||
| 6:00 | University of Michigan | vs. | Mercyhurst College | |
| 7:30 | University of Michigan | vs. |
Gannon University | |
| Gannon University, Erie, Pa. | ||||
| Saturday, March 19, 2011 | ||||
| 11:00 | Gannon University | vs. | Mercyhurst College | |
| 6:00 | Gannon University | vs. | Hartwick College | |
| Mercyhurst College, Erie, Pa. | ||||
| Saturday, March 19, 2011 | ||||
| 3:00 | Mercyhurst College | vs. |
Hartwick College | |
| Indiana
University, Bloomington, Ind. |
||||
| Saturday, March 26, 2011 | ||||
| 2:00 | Indiana University | vs. |
University of Michigan | |
| Princeton University, Princeton, N.J. | ||||
| Saturday, April 2, 2011 | ||||
| TBA | University of Michigan | vs. |
Bucknell University | |
| Gannon University, Erie, Pa. | ||||
| Friday, April 8, 2011 | ||||
| 5:00 | Gannon University | vs. |
Indiana University | |
| Mercyhurst College, Erie, Pa. | ||||
| Friday, April 8, 2011 | ||||
| 7:30 | Mercyhurst College | vs. |
Indiana University | |
| Bucknell
University, Lewisburg, Pa. |
||||
| Saturday, April 9, 2011 | ||||
| 11:30 | University of Michigan | vs. | Hartwick College | |
| 1:00 | Bucknell University | vs. |
Indiana University | |
| 5:30 | Hartwick College | vs. | Indiana University | |
| Mercyhurst College, Erie, Pa. | ||||
| Saturday, April 16, 2011 | ||||
| 3:00 | Mercyhurst College | vs. | Bucknell University | |
| Gannon University, Erie, Pa. | ||||
| Saturday, April 16, 2011 | ||||
| 7:00 | Gannon University | vs. |
Bucknell University | |
| Bucknell
University, Lewisburg, Pa. |
||||
| Sunday, April 17, 2011 | ||||
| 2:00 | Bucknell University | vs. |
Hartwick College | |