The semi-finals of the 2018 Men’s NCAA Division III Volleyball National Championship Tournament are set. The 12-team bracket is now pared down to just 4, who will play in the semifinals on Friday, April 27th in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
The winners then advance to the next night’s National Championship Match.
The defending champions Springfield College (Mass.) return to the semi-finals for the 7th-straight season. Springfield has won 4 of the 6 Division III titles since the championship was officially launched in 2012, and have appeared in all 6 championship games in that period.
The last two championship games have been between Springfield and New Paltz, with the two teams splitting the titles. This year, though, New Paltz lost to Vassar College in the UVC Championship semi-finals to finish the season just 19-8 and out of the tournament. Vassar, meanwhile, has springboarded of that win all the way to the national semi-finals where they will run into the history that is of the juggernaut Springfield College.
On the other half of the bracket is Stevens Institute of Technology, who beat Vassar in the UVC finals; they will face off against Dominican (Ill.).
Stevens is the only other team in this year’s final 4 who has ever advanced to the D3 National Championship match. They hosted and won the 2015 title. This is a particularly juicy matchup given that last year, Stevens knocked the higher-seeded Dominican University out of the national championship tournament in the second round.
Prior to this year, Dominican had never-before won an NCAA tournament game, having lost their opener in each of the 4 years of program existence. In 2018, they’ve swept Hunter and beat Carthage 3-1 in the first two rounds of the tournament (they’re the underdog – the only team of the 4 remaining that didn’t receive a first round bye).
The bracket as it stands today is below.
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