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A new conference will be coming to NCAA men’s volleyball.
The East Coast Conference announced Wednesday that it will sponsor men’s volleyball starting in the 2024 season.
“Men’s volleyball is one of the fastest growing sports in the United States and we are happy to help organize this as a conference sport for some of our regional colleagues,” ECC Commissioner Robert Dranoff said in a statement. “We look forward to continuing to grow men’s volleyball in the coming years.”
The ECC is a Division II conference comprised of schools located in New York and Washington D.C.
The conference will have five men’s volleyball programs for its inaugural season, including first-year programs and full-time ECC members Roberts Wesleyan and St. Thomas Aquinas. It also will add American International and fellow first-year men’s volleyball programs Alliance and Dominican as affiliate members.
American International is entering its program’s third season and finished last season at 2-22 with wins against Emerson and Widener
Daemen and D’Youville are both members of the ECC but will remain affiliate members of the NEC. The NEC started sponsoring men’s volleyball last season and are on track to potentially in the future receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
The ECC as a five-team conference will not meet the six-team minimum requirement to qualify for an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. The conference also announced Wednesday it will pursue an additional sixth member to meet the team number requirement to be eligible for an automatic bid in the future.