The Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (EIVA) is a college athletic conference whose member schools compete in men's volleyball. Its member institutions are located in the Northeast United States.
The EIVA Tournament champion receives an automatic bid to the NCAA National Semifinals. The two other major volleyball conferences, the MIVA (Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association) and the MPSF (Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) also send their league tournament champions to the National Semifinals. The 4th team is an at-large bid that is chosen from one of the 3 leagues by a committee of coaches from these leagues.
Penn State has won every conference championship for the past 17 years, with the exception of 1998 when Princeton captured the title. The Nittany Lions are the only team to win the NCAA national championships, having captured the title in 1994 and 2008.
As of the 2011-12 season, the EIVA consists of 8 teams: George Mason University, Harvard University, New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), Pennsylvania State University (PSU), Princeton University, Rutgers-Newark University, Sacred Heart University, and Saint Francis University. The top four teams will compete for the EIVA conference championship. The winner will represent the EIVA conference in the NCAA Div. I/II national final championships.
Previously, from 2005-2006 to 2010-2011, the conference was divided into two divisions. The higher division was named the Tait Division and the lower division was named the Hay Division. The conference used a system of promotion and relegation whereby the last place team from the Tait Division went to the Hay for the following season and the highest ranked Hay Division team moved to the Tait. Prior to that, there was a second lower division (equal to Hay) named the Sweeney Division, but this was eliminated for the 2006 season. The two lower divisions were merged into one division at that time.
On April 28, 2012 the late Uvaldo Acosta (George Mason), the late Tom Hay (Springfield College), Ivan Marquez (Concordia ), the late Bill Odeneal (SUNY New Paltz), Bob Sweeney (East Stroudsburg) and Tom Tait (Penn State) were inducted into the EIVA's inaugural Hall of Fame class during the 2012 EIVA Championship match at Penn State.
Read more about Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association: Members, Conference Arenas, Former Members
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