Messiah was one of 24 schools to qualify for the DIII field hockey championship bracket.
INDIANAPOLIS — The NCAA Division III Field Hockey Committee announced today the field of 24 teams that will compete in the 2017 NCAA Division III Field Hockey Championship.
Sixteen teams will compete in eight first-round games on campus sites Wednesday, November 8. The eight first-round winners, along with the eight teams that received a first-round bye, will compete at four campus sites during second/third-round play, Saturday and Sunday, November 11 and 12.
Interactive bracket | Printable bracket
The winners of the four sites will advance to the semifinals Friday, November 17, which will be hosted by Bellarmine University at Owsley B. Frazier Stadium in Louisville, Kentucky. The winners of the semifinals will advance to the final on Sunday, November 19, at Trager Stadium on the campus of the University of Louisville. Semifinals will be played at 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. Eastern time, Friday, November 17, with the championship game being played at 5 p.m. Eastern time, Sunday, November 19. Championship information, including information about tickets, is available here.
Eighteen conferences have been awarded automatic qualification for their champions into the 2017 championship. One team was selected from Pool B, which consists of independent institutions and institutions that are members of conferences that do not meet the requirements for automatic qualification. Finally, five berths were reserved for Pool C, which consists of institutions from automatic-qualifying conferences that are not the conference champions and the remaining teams from Pool B.
The 18 conferences and schools receiving automatic qualification are:
| Automatic Qualifiers | |
|---|---|
| Conference | School |
| Capital Athletic Conference | Christopher Newport University |
| Centennial Conference | Franklin & Marshall College |
| Colonial States Athletic Conference | Gwynedd Mercy University |
| Commonwealth Coast Conference | University of New England |
| Empire 8 | Washington and Jefferson College |
| Great Northeast Athletic Conference | Saint Joseph's College (Maine) |
| Landmark | Juniata College |
| Liberty League | University of Rochester |
| Little East Conference | Keene State College |
| Middle Atlantic Conference Commonwealth | Messiah College |
| Middle Atlantic Conference Freedom | Misericordia University |
| New England Small College Athletic Conference | Middlebury College |
| New England Women's and Men's Athletics Conference | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| New Jersey Athletic Conference | The College of New Jersey |
| North Atlantic Conference | Husson University |
| North Coast Athletic Conference | Denison University |
| Old Dominion Athletic Conference | Washington and Lee University |
| State University of New York Athletic Conference | State University of New York at Cortland |
The one Pool B team is:
Centre College
The five Pool C teams are:
Babson College
Kean University
Montclair State University
Salisbury University
Trinity College (Connecticut)
In 2016, Messiah College defeated Tufts University 1-0 at McCooey Field at William Smith College. It was Messiah’s first national title.
