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Emmanuel in its inaugural season as a NCAA Division II provisional member will play its first match in program history against an EIVA opponent.
The newest Conference Carolinas school recently announced that it scheduled a non-conference match against Sacred Heart in the upcoming season.
Sacred Heart and Emmanuel will play each other as part of the Coker Invitational on March 7 in Hartsville, South Carolina. It is also the only non-conference match on Emmanuel’s recently unveiled 2015 regular season schedule versus a team from the EIVA or MIVA.
Emmanuel joins the Conference Carolinas as a provisional member for the 2015 season and will continue its three-year transition from NAIA before becoming eligible for full NCAA Division II membership in the fall of 2016.
The Tigers in the program’s second year finished last season at No. 8 in the NAIA national coaches poll and narrowly missed an at-large bid to the six-team NAIA national championships.
Sacred Heart ended the 2014 season in sixth place in the EIVA and for the third consecutive year did not qualify the four-team conference tournament. In addition, the Pioneers return a majority of their starters, including outside attacker Enzo Mackenzie who was in the conference’s top 10 with a 2.91 kills per game average.
This will be the second consecutive year that Sacred Heart has participated in the Coker Invitational. The Pioneers last season went 2-1 at the non-conference tournament with victories against Coker and Pfeiffer.
Along with its match against Sacred Heart, Emmanuel will play three of its remaining five non-conference matches next season against NCAA Division I-II teams.
Emmanuel will have a home-and-home non-conference series against Coker and will play a home match on March 9 against Holy Names, the newest NCAA Division II men’s volleyball program from the West Coast.