D2 and Small College Women's Conference Shift to NCR This Summer
D2 and Small College Women's Conference Shift to NCR This Summer
National Collegiate Rugby's summer has been marked by a series of women's conferences moving to operating under NCR.
The Carolinas Conference, D1 and D2, Mid-Atlantic, and Capital Conference have all shifted to NCR. Now today the New England Wide, Tri-State, and two D2 teams from Colorado will join the organization as well. It's worth noting that New England-Wide remains a hybrid organization with their D3 playing in CRAA. This move essentially ends the existence of ACRA as an independent entity.
While GRR has fielded some complaints about NCR's recruiting tactics (specifically from Vassar Head Coach Tony Brown), ultimately, it's a logical move for these conferences. The more of these lower-division conferences move to NCR, the more logical it is for others to move over. While some conferences that play in the spring might remain with CRAA, it's clear NCR has the majority of women's collegiate rugby teams.
This was not the case last season (US Collegiate Rugby Membership By The Numbers) when NCR boasted about 47% of women's teams, but the recruiting of so many conferences and teams puts them firmly in the majority. NCR's press release says the moves are "further unifying women’s rugby under a single collegiate association" which isn't quite correct. But certainly D2 women's college rugby is now an NCR product, more or less, joining small-college. D1 is getting to that point.
With the NEWCRC and Tri State, top teams such as Vassar (however grudgingly) Coast Guard, and Fairfield join the NCR competition. From Colorado, it's Colorado School of Mines and Colorado College coming in.
“NEWCRC is excited to have our Division II Women’s programs join the NCR family," said NEWCRC Commissioner Dave Meyer. "Our men's clubs have had much success playing across NCR's D2 and Small College pools, and we believe that our women’s programs will benefit greatly from NCR's extensive experience running a top notch collegiate competition.”
With the shift to NCR, some of the new Division II programs will have the opportunity to compete in the Small College championship pathway while continuing their existing conference play.
Also from NCR's press release: "These announcements follow several recent conference moves to NCR including the Carolinas Conference (DI and DII), MARC (DII) and Capital Conference (DII). With these recent shifts, about 250 teams, or 75% of non-NCAA women’s clubs, will play in the NCR league. NCR will now serve the largest Division II pool since the seasonality split in 2014, and expand the post-season bids from 8 to 16 Division II teams."
By our count, there are just over 400 non-NCAA women's clubs. So 250 teams is not 75%, but a still impressive 62%. Even with the NCAA teams added into the list (and it seems logical to do so) NCR has about 57% of women's college teams now under their umbrella; it could eventually be more than that. The vast majority of those are D2 and Small College.