Stonehill Named Host for 2016 NCAA D-II Field Hockey Championship

Stonehill College in Easton, MA, has been named host for the 2016 NCAA Division II Field Hockey Championship to be held November 11-13 of that year at Timothy J. Coughlin Memorial Field at W.B. Mason Stadium. It was among 523 host sites for 82 of the NCAA’s 89 championships between 2014 and 2018 that were announced on Wednesday.

Stonehill will host the field hockey national semifinals and championship round for the second time at W.B. Mason Stadium after earning the right to host at the top seed in the North Region in 2009. Bloomsburg (Pa.) University defeated the University of Massachusetts Lowell, 3-2, to claim its fourth-straight NCAA Division II Championship that year.

 “Stonehill College is thrilled to be selected as the host for the 2016 NCAA Division II Field Hockey Championships,” said Brendan Sullivan, Director of Intercollegiate Athletics at Stonehill. “W.B. Mason Stadium and our entire campus are wonderful venues to host an event that is the pinnacle for so many student-athletes and coaches. We look forward to hosting the NCAA, the student-athletes, coaches and fans from the institutions that qualify. Most importantly, we hope that Stonehill field hockey program has an opportunity to compete for and win a National Championship at home in 2016.”

Stonehill has a rich history of hosting top-level athletic championships. The 2016 NCAA Field Hockey Championship will mark the sixth time it will host an NCAA Championship event. The 2001 and 2003 women's lacrosse championships were held on campus at Skyhawk Field, while Stonehill hosted the 2006 and 2007 Division II Indoor Track & Field Championships at the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston. The College has also hosted numerous NCAA Regional Championship rounds, most recently the field hockey North Regional first round between Stonehill and Merrimack College as well as the men’s and women’s cross country East Regionals at Franklin Park in Boston in November.

W.B. Mason Stadium has also served as host of the 2009 Northeast-10 Conference field hockey championship, 2010 NE-10 Outdoor Track & Field Championships and 2013 New England Track & Field Championships. Opened in 2005, W.B. Mason Stadium seats 2,400 and hosted an NE-10 football game between Stonehill and the University of New Haven that was televised live on CBS Sports Network in October 2012. The artificial turf playing surface is named in memory of Tim Coughlin, a former football standout and member of Stonehill’s Class of 1980, whose life was tragically cut short on September 11, 2011.

 “We really want to thank everyone who put in a bid,” said Mark Lewis, NCAA executive vice president of championships and alliances. “The competitiveness of the bids made it extremely difficult for the sport committees to select sites as there just weren’t spots for all of the great bids we received. Ultimately the sites that were selected will provide our student-athletes, coaches and fans the best experience possible.”

Stonehill and W.B. Mason Stadium is one of four Championship and two regional hosts from the State of Massachusetts announced by the NCAA. Other host sites from the State, include:

Division I

• Men’s Hockey Finals (2015) - hosted by Hockey East at TD Garden
• Men’s Hockey Regionals (2016) - hosted by Holy Cross at the DCU Center

Division II

• Field Hockey Championships (2016) hosted by Stonehill at WB Mason Stadium

Division III 

• Baseball Regionals (2014) hosted by Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference at Whitehouse Field in Harwich
• Men’s Volleyball Championships (2017) hosted by Springfield College at Blake Arena

National Collegiate

• M/W Fencing Championships (2016) hosted by Brandeis at Gosman Sports and Convocation Center

The new NCAA championship bid process creates the largest host site announcement ever, spanning 82 championships across a four-year cycle. Previously, selection announcements varied by sport. This process now gives the NCAA and host sites more time to plan each championship experience.

Bidding for 82 of 89 NCAA championships began in July and 1,984 bid applications were ultimately submitted. Each sport committee, per division, selected the host sites it believed would provide the ultimate experience for the respective student-athletes, resulting in 523 total championship event sites awarded. The seven championships not included in the process due to preexisting site arrangements are: Division I baseball, Division I men’s basketball, Division I football, Division I men’s and women’s golf, Division I softball and Division III women’s ice hockey.

For more information on all of the NCAA championship sites awarded, log on to www.ncaa.com/site-selections.

With 20 intercollegiate sports, Stonehill boasts one of the top athletic and academic programs in the country. The Skyhawks have finished in the top three in the final NE-10 Presidents' Cup standings nine straight years, winning the Cup four times, including a streak of three-straight from 2009-10 through 2011-12. This prestigious award is given to the top performing athletic school in the Northeast-10, across all sports and seasons. Stonehill has received the NCAA Division II Presidents' Award for Academic Achievement each of the first two years if the program's existence of honoring programs with an Academic Success Rate (ASR) of 90-percent or better. The Skyhawks have earned a 97% Academic Success Ranking (ASR) by the NCAA, which considers the academic success rate of the institution based on the graduation rate of student-athletes, good for fifth among all NCAA Division II institutions, with ten Skyhawk teams receiving a perfect rating of 100%. In addition, the Skyhawks are ranked sixth in the National Collegiate Scouting Association (NCSA) Power Rankings used to assess the academic and athletic standards of all NCAA and NAIA athletic programs.