NCAA Championship Bracket
INDIANAPOLIS – It was a special night as the selection show revealed four teams from the Great Midwest Athletic Conference qualifying for the NCAA DII Men’s Soccer Championship bracket on Monday.
Compared to 56 teams taken by the selection committee for the women’s national tournament, the men’s new four super region format features a total of 40.
Lake Erie, Ohio Valley, Tiffin and Cedarville, are all representing the league after a terrific regular season and postseason by each program and their coaching staff, respectively.
Tiffin received the AQ after winning the conference tournament in Dayton as the No. 4 seed. The Dragons are certainly playing their best soccer at the right time after reeling off semifinal and championship victories against NCAA qualifying teams.
Tiffin will face No. 3 seed Maryville in the second round of the playoffs down in St. Louis, Mo., on Sunday at 1 p.m. ET.
At-large selections went to the other three programs who are poised to make noise against the rest of the region. Lake Erie will serve as a host institution for part of Super Region 3. The regular season champion Storm will face either UIndy or Fort Hays State with a first-round bye.
Lake Erie would first take the field in Painesville on Saturday at 3 p.m. ET.
As the No. 7 seed, Cedarville will have a first-round game against No. 10 Wisconsin-Parkside the AQ from the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. That game is a Thursday 6:30 p.m. ET start time from Louisville, Ky., where Bellarmine hosts.
Ohio Valley is the No. 5 and also takes the field on Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m. ET, but will face No. 4 McKendree, the Great Lakes Valley Conference tourney runner-up.
Ten teams were selected from each of the four super regions. Teams from the same region will be paired for first- and/or second-round competition, which will be conducted Nov. 21-24 on campus sites. Third-round/quarterfinals will be held on campus sites and completed by Dec. 5-8. The semifinals and final will be played Dec. 12 and 14 at Highmark Stadium in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania hosted by Slippery Rock University and SportsPITTSBURGH. In the 2018 championship, Barry University beat University of West Chester 2-1 to claim their first national championship in school history.