MANCHESTER, N.H.
– The Southern New Hampshire University Department of
Athletics and Recreation announced Thursday that it plans to expand
its sport offerings over the next three academic years. SNHU
will add women's golf immediately to begin play in the fall
of 2013. Field hockey, a sport SNHU sponsored from 1977-1981,
will return in the fall of 2014 as a varsity offering, while
women's outdoor track and field is slated to begin varsity
competition in the 2015-16 academic year. Finally, contingent
on interest, the University plans to add a women's bowling
team in 2015-16.
The new sports will create
participation opportunities for 75 new student-athletes at Southern
New Hampshire and the school will now sponsor a total of 20 varsity
sports, 17 of which will compete for current Northeast-10
Conference championships.
Below is a look at each of the new
programs:
WOMEN'S
GOLF
Women's golf is one of the
fastest-growing sports at the NCAA Division II level. In the
past 10 years, a total of 86 Division II institutions have added
the sport, an increase of nearly 97%, as 175 schools across the
country sponsor women's golf at the Division II
level.
Southern New Hampshire becomes the
third Northeast-10 Conference institution to offer the sport, along
with Le Moyne College and Merrimack College. The NE-10 does
not currently sponsor a women's golf championship, as six
schools are required to sponsor a sport per conference
bylaws. However, just 10 other Division II and Division III
institutions in New England offer the sport, none in New Hampshire,
and SNHU joins Dartmouth College as the only other women's
golf program in the Granite State.
The women's golf team will be
coached by current SNHU men's golf coach Matt
Arvanitis. A former standout student-athlete for the Penmen
and a member of the SNHU Athletic Hall of Fame, Arvanitis has
served as the Penmen men's golf coach since 2005 and guided
SNHU to NCAA appearances in 2006 and 2009, while also having an
individual qualifier in 2010.
Tryouts for current SNHU students
for the women's golf team will be held in April.
Information on those tryouts will be released at a later date.
FIELD HOCKEY
The addition of field hockey is a
restart of the program, as SNHU fielded a team from 1977-1981
before dropping the sport in favor of women's soccer.
This will mark the fourth former sport brought back to the North
River Road campus, as men's and women's tennis and
men's golf returned to SNHU in the 2000-01 academic year when
the Penmen joined the Northeast-10 Conference. A total of 56
high schools in the state of New Hampshire sponsor field
hockey.
Southern New Hampshire, which
currently has an active club field hockey program, will become the
12th team in the Northeast-10 Conference, joining
Adelphi University, American International College, Assumption
College, Bentley University, Franklin Pierce University, Merrimack
College, Saint Anselm College, Saint Michael's College,
Southern Connecticut State University and Stonehill College.
LIU Post also competes in Northeast-10 field hockey as an associate
member beginning in the fall of 2013. Northeast-10 teams have
won Division II national championships in the sport in 2001, 2005
and 2010 and are consistently nationally ranked.
A search for a head coach for the
field hockey program will begin in the spring with the plan to have
a coach in place in August in order to begin recruiting for the
2014 season.
WOMEN'S OUTDOOR
TRACK AND FIELD
Track and field has long been a
staple at New Hampshire high schools, as in the 2012-13 academic
year, a total of 77 Granite State high schools will field an
outdoor track team. While SNHU does not currently have a
track and field facility, a feasibility study is slated for the
near future to determine future athletics and recreational facility
needs at the University.
Southern New Hampshire will become
the 11th Northeast-10 school to sponsor women's
outdoor track, joining Adelphi, American International, Assumption,
Bentley, Franklin Pierce, Merrimack, University of New Haven, The
College of Saint Rose, Southern Connecticut and Stonehill.
WOMEN'S
BOWLING
Bowling has been one of the
fastest-growing NCAA championship sports since the organization
first sponsored a championship in 2004. A total of 61 teams
are competing in 2012-13, a 50% increase from just 10 years
ago. Bowling conducts a National Collegiate Championship,
meaning that SNHU would likely be competing against institutions
from all three NCAA divisions.
A majority of schools that sponsor
the sport are in the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest regions of the
country. There is currently only one other school in New
England sponsoring a varsity bowling team, Sacred Heart University
in Fairfield, Conn. Adelphi University is currently the only
other Northeast-10 institution that fields a bowling team.
The New Hampshire Interscholastic
Athletic Association (NHIAA) introduced a co-ed bowling
championship in 2012 and currently 12 high schools across the state
compete in the sport.
Southern New Hampshire University
boasts one of the most competitive Division II programs in the
country. Penmen teams routinely compete in the postseason,
having earned a total of 52 NCAA berths in 10 different
sports. Men's soccer won the 1989 national championship
and has made a total of 10 national quarterfinal appearances, while
the men's basketball team has advanced to six “Elite
Eights”. In 2011-12 four Penmen teams appeared in the
NCAAs (baseball, men's soccer, men's tennis,
women's tennis), with baseball winning the East Region
title. Thus far in 2012-13 both Penmen soccer teams appeared
in the NCAA tournament, with the men capturing a regional
title.
Individually, SNHU student-athletes
have twice been named National Players of the Year and have been
named All-Americans a total of 80 times. Academically, the
Penmen have had 13 Capital One/CoSIDA Academic All-Americans, and
60% of SNHU student-athletes were named to the Northeast-10
Commissioner's Honor Roll in the fall of 2012 for achieving
at least a 3.0 GPA in the fall semester.
