Women’s D-III NCAA Field Announced

The NCAA Division III Women’s Ice Hockey Committee has announced the seven teams selected for the 2005 NCAA Division III Women’s Ice Hockey Championship.

Of the seven teams selected, four of the teams received automatic qualification as winners of their conference championships. One school was selected from Pool B, which are independent schools and schools from conferences that do not meet the requirements for automatic qualification. The final two schools are from Pool C, which are schools from automatic-qualifying conferences that were not the conference champion and the remaining schools from Pool B.

Conferences receiving automatic qualification:

ECAC East — Manhattanville
ECAC West — Elmira
MIAC — Gustavus Adolphus
NESCAC — Middlebury

Wisc.-Stevens Point received the Pool B bid.

Plattsburgh and Bowdoin received the Pool C bids.

In the first-round games, Bowdoin will visit Plattsburgh, Manhattanville will visit Middlebury, and Gustavus Adolphus will visit Wisc.-Stevens Point. Three first-round games will be played at campus sites March 11, 12 or 13. Dates and times for these games will be announced Monday.

The semifinals and finals will be held on March 18 and 19 at Elmira, who earned the first-round bye. Elmira won the first two NCAA Division III Women’s Ice Hockey Championships in 2002 and 2003. Middlebury is the defending champion.

A complete bracket can be found here.