Aug. 16, 2012

2012-13 Championship Dates and Pages

CENTER VALLEY, Pa. – The dates are set for the Patriot League championships in 2012-13, and for the first time since women’s rowing in 2005, a new championship will debut during the upcoming academic year.

Women’s golf was added as the League’s 24th championship sport by the Council of Presidents in the spring. The first championship will be contested Saturday-Sunday, April 20-21, 2013, at Bucknell Golf Course in Lewisburg, Pa. Currently Bucknell, Holy Cross and Lehigh are League schools that sponsor women’s golf.

As was the case last year, CBS Sports Network will feature coverage of both the Men’s and Women’s Basketball and the Men’s Lacrosse tournaments. In 2011-12, CBS Sports Network broadcast several men’s basketball tournament contests, including the championship final, the women’s basketball championship game and the men’s lacrosse tournament in its entirety.

In addition, Patriot League All-Access will be the streaming home of many League championships. In 2011-12, All-Access provided tournament coverage for field hockey, men and women’s soccer, volleyball, men and women’s basketball, men and women’s swimming and diving, women’s lacrosse, softball and baseball.

Men’s and women’s basketball will once again feature identical tournament structures, as the higher seed will host in each round. The men’s quarterfinals are set for Wednesday, March 6, and the semifinals are slated for Saturday, March 9. The championship game will take place Wednesday, March 13.

The women’s basketball quarterfinals tip off Thursday, March 7, with the semifinals set for Monday, March 11. The championship contest is scheduled for Saturday, March 16.

Broadcast schedules for both tournaments will be available at a later date.

The first of the League’s 23 championships to be crowned will take place Saturday, Oct. 27, when Colgate’s Harry H. Lang Course hosts the men’s and women’s cross country championships in Hamilton, N.Y. The fall schedule continues in earnest a week later, as both the field hockey and women’s soccer championships will be determined on the same weekend. The field hockey tournament is set for Friday-Saturday, Nov. 2-3, while the women’s soccer tournament will take place Friday/Sunday, Nov. 2/4.

The following weekend the Patriot League will crown its men’s soccer champion beginning with the semifinals Friday, Nov. 9 and concluding with the title match Sunday, Nov. 11.

The fall championship season concludes Saturday-Sunday, Nov. 17-18, when the League crowns a titlist in volleyball.

The four-team tournaments in field hockey, men’s soccer, women’s soccer and volleyball will be hosted by the No. 1 seed.

In addition to basketball in the winter, the League will host two other full-field championships. The League’s eight schools will converge on the Gillis Field House on the campus of the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., for the 2013 men’s and women’s indoor track and field championships on Friday-Sunday, Feb. 15-17. A week later Bucknell’s Kinney Natatorium in Lewisburg, Pa., will serve as the site of the men’s and women’s swimming and diving championships on Thursday-Saturday, Feb. 21-23.

The spring championship season begins with a pair of championships. In addition to the inaugural women’s golf championship, Colgate’s Abrahamson Courts will host the men’s tennis Friday-Sunday, April 19-21.

More championships will be determined in the spring, including women’s tennis at Army (April 26-28), men’s golf at Lehigh (April 27-28) and men’s and women’s outdoor track and field at Lehigh (May 3-4). Tournaments will be held at the top seeds to determine League champions in men’s lacrosse (April 26 and 28), women’s lacrosse (April 26 and 28), softball (May 9-11) and baseball (May 11-12 and 18-19), where the top two seeds host the semifinal weekend and the top remaining seed hosts the championship.

Patriot League champions in team sports, as well as men’s golf and tennis, will earn automatic bids to the respective NCAA Tournaments, while individuals in swimming and diving, cross country and track and field will have the opportunity to compete for national titles by surpassing various individual qualification marks.

The Patriot League will also crown a champion in football for the 27th time in 2012. The League began as a football conference in 1986 before expanding to include all sports starting in 1990. The champion earns an automatic berth in the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision playoffs.