America East Conference has announced its complete championship schedule (WEB |
PDF) for the upcoming 2005-06 athletic season. The nine-team league will host a total of 22 conference championships from October through May.
The women’s soccer, field hockey, swimming & diving, women’s basketball, women’s lacrosse, men’s lacrosse, softball and baseball America East championships have all undergone format or scheduling changes for the 2005-06 campaign.
The first round and semifinals of the women’s soccer championship will be at the No. 1 seed on October 28 & 30, with the title game to be played on November 5 or 6 at the higher remaining seed. This marks the first time in league history that all six tournament teams will come together at one site for first round and semifinal action.
The field hockey championship will keep its four-team format with the event being held at the highest seeded team with a non-filled artificial turf surface. The schedule, however, is altered slightly as the tournament will now take place on back-to-back days, November 4-5.
The Boston University Fitness and Recreation Center, which opened in April of 2005, will play host to the school’s first conference swimming and diving championship event on February 16-19. The facility, which includes a 10-lane pool and separate diving area, is located on Commonwealth Avenue, next to Agganis Arena, as part of the John Hancock Student Village. The championship event will now last four days, starting on Thursday, February 16 and concluding on Sunday, February 19.
The Friendship Cottage Cheese America East Women’s Basketball Championship returns for the fifth-straight year to Chase Arena at The Reich Family Pavilion on the University of Hartford campus March 9-12. The tournament schedule has been bumped back a day this season as the first round gets underway on Thursday, with the title game being played on Sunday, March 12.
The most significant change to the championship schedule comes on May 5 & 7 with the men’s lacrosse championship. The four-team tournament will now be played entirely at the No. 1 seed.
In women’s lacrosse, the championship will remain at the No. 1 seed, but a Friday-Sunday format has the four-team event falling on May 5 & 7, the same days as the men’s lacrosse conference tournament.
The softball and baseball championships keep their four-team, double-elimination format, but they will now be played at the No. 1 seed. The softball championship is schedule for May 11-13 with the baseball championship wrapping up the conference season on May 25-27 at the highest seed with lights.
Binghamton University will host the conference’s first postseason event when the men’s and women’s cross country championships are run on the Binghamton University Course at the Vestal, N.Y. campus October 29. It marks the first cross country title event hosted by Binghamton.
The six-team men’s soccer championship will consist of first-round games November 5, semifinal games November 9 and the championship game November 12 or 13. All games will be played at the home site of the higher-seeded team.
The four-team volleyball championship will be November 18 and 19 or November 19 and 20 at the No. 1 seed.
The men’s and women’s indoor track and field championships will be held at the Boston University Track and Tennis Center February 17 and 18. It will mark the fourth-straight year at the state-of-the-art facility, which opened for track competition on December 6, 2002.
Binghamton University will serve as host of the America East Men’s Basketball Championship for the second-straight year. The first-round, quarterfinal and semifinal games will be held March 3-5 at the $33.1 million Events Center on the Binghamton campus in Vestal, N.Y. The championship game will be held at the home court of the higher remaining seed Saturday, March 11 at 11:30 a.m. That game will be televised on ESPN.
The conference also voted to return to the Connecticut Tennis Center in New Haven for the men’s and women’s tennis championships April 28-30. It will mark the sixth-straight year the conference titles will be determined there.
The men’s and women’s golf championships will be held May 1 and 2 at The International in Bolton, Mass.
The men’s and women’s outdoor track and field championships will be held May 6 and 7 at The Reggie F. Atkins Track Facility on the University of New Hampshire campus in Durham, N.H. It will mark the second time the event has taken place at UNH as the 2002 championship was held there as well.
Recommendations for championship format and sites are made by votes of the coaches in each sport. Those recommendations are forwarded to the Committee on Championships and Competition (CCC), consisting of an athletics administrator at each of the nine member institutions, for discussion. The CCC then forwards its recommendations to the directors of athletics, for final approval.
America East will consist of nine institutions in 2005-06: Albany, Binghamton, Boston University, Hartford, University of Maine, UMBC, New Hampshire, Stony Brook and Vermont.