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A move that his been in the works for several years was finally made official today as the EIVA will lose one of its charter members.
The Continental Volleyball Conference announced Thursday that it voted unanimously in favor of adding Rutgers-Newark to the NCAA Division III men’s volleyball conference for the 2015 season.
Rutgers-Newark entered this season in the final year of a three-year transition from Division I-II to Division III for men’s volleyball.
This conference change will also end the Scarlet Raiders’ run of almost 40 years in the EIVA — and the conference’s early predecessor of the ECVL. Rutgers-Newark as a NCAA Division I-II team advanced to the NCAA Tournament five times with its most recent appearance occurring in 1990.
Rutgers-Newark (4-8, 0-6 EIVA) in its final EIVA season is in last place and is the only winless team in conference play.
As part of its transition to NCAA Division III, the Scarlet Raiders created their non-conference schedule to primarily include NCAA Division III opponents. The team despite the losing conference record is 4-1 so far this season against NCAA Division III schools.
With the loss of Rutgers-Newark, the EIVA will drop to a seven-team conference for the 2015 season. In addition, the EIVA next season will be the smallest NCAA Division I-II college men’s volleyball conference — trailing the MIVA by two teams, the Conference Carolinas by four teams and the MPSF by six teams.
Rutgers-Newark is the first school to leave the EIVA since Springfield, Juniata and NYU left the conference at the end of the 2011 season because of the NCAA sanctioning a Division III national championship.