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Update: DI College Spring Playoffs

  • 27 Mar 2019
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Photo: Jackie Finlan

There were just two Division I spring college league matches last weekend (and they didn’t involve ranked teams) so it’s another idle round for the rankings. Fortunately, this weekend will name representatives to spring regional championships, which occur April 19-20 (UC Irvine) in the west and April 20-21 (East Carolina) in the east.

PACIFIC MOUNTAIN

The conference holds its championship this weekend at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif, and will send its top two teams to spring regionals in UC Irvine (Friday-Saturday, April 19-20). Three teams from the West and one from North meet in the conference semifinals:

MARCH 30 Semifinals

1 p.m. PT UC Davis (West #1) vs. Stanford (West #3)

3 p.m. PT Chico State (West #2) vs. Oregon State (North #1)

MARCH 31 Finals

11:30 a.m. PT 3rd Place

1:30 p.m. PT 1st Place

There were a couple of caveats leading up to this year’s playoffs. Washington State went 5-0 in league but was ineligible for the post-season due to a disciplinary sanction from last year. The Cougars did not take its berth to the 2018 regional playoffs and a last-minute replacement was needed (Arizona State filled in). However, that berth was to Provo, Utah, for a first-round game against DI Elite BYU, and that’s a lot of money and travel for essentially a guaranteed loss. Fortunately that DI Elite – DI spring combination post-season is no more.

Once Washington State beat Washington last weekend, Oregon State was confirmed as the league’s runner-up and thus rep at conference playoffs. Stay tuned for an interview with OSU head coach David Dickson later today.

Additionally, Chico State and Humboldt State weren’t able to land on a replacement date for their make-up game, and so the Wildcats took the forfeit win – which affords four standings points. Had that game been played the most likely scenario is that Chico State would have banked a bonus-point win. It ended up being the difference between UC Davis and Chico State in the standings and thus the seeding.

MASON-DIXON

There’s a bit of frustration in the Mason-Dixon conference, which was supposed to hold crossover quarterfinals between its North and South teams this weekend. Only one “challenge match” is actually occurring – USC vs. James Madison – while:

  • Pittsburgh declined to play Queens University of Charlotte;
  • Clemson declined UVA; and
  • NC State declined Virginia Tech.

The conference championship is April 6-7 in Charlottesville, Va., starting with the semifinals:

Queens (South #1) vs. UVA (North #2)

Virginia Tech (North #1) vs. Winner of USC vs. James Madison

Although not confirmed, it’s likely that three Mason-Dixon teams will advance to the eastern portion of spring regionals and join the Florida rep.

PACIFIC DESERT

UCSB is hosting the conference semifinals and final next weekend, April 6-7. The Saturday semifinals will be:

#1 UCSB vs. #4 CSU Northridge

#2 Grand Canyon vs. #3 UCLA

The finals are on Sunday and the victor will take the automatic berth to the spring regionals in Irvine.

FLORIDA

University of Central Florida hasn’t clinched the berth to regionals but is highly favored to. The team has three more games, two of which are against DI teams. This weekend it’s Florida State, which is 4-1, the loss coming to DII Eckerd College.

AT-LARGE

BYU is the at-large team and will feature in the western portion of the DI spring regionals, along with the two Pacific Mountain reps and the Pacific Desert champ.

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