UHartford women's soccer and the Commonwealth Coast Conference-- 2023-2024.

[deiscanton]

I have watched some of the 3 UHartford women's soccer road games played so far this season-- especially UHartford's wins at nationally ranked Montclair State and at nationally ranked Emory.

Fortunately for both Montclair State and Emory, as UHartford is reclassifying from DI to DIII and is playing a DIII schedule for the first time this season, results vs UHartford do not count in the primary criteria for selection to the NCAA DIII tournament this season.

Moreover, UHartford is not eliglible for either the Commonwealth Coast Conference title or a bid to the NCAA DIII tournament as it is the Hawks's first year playing a DIII schedule and UHartford will not become a full DIII member until the 2025-26 season.

UHartford is a Commonwealth Coast Conference member this season and will play against all of the current full member CCC opponents, however the Commonwealth Coast Conference has determined that games between other CCC teams and UHartford will only be considered as non-conference games this year and will not count in the CCC standings for purposes of conference tournament seeding.

As part of the reclassification process from DI, returning juniors, seniors, and grad students on the UHartford roster this year can play this season under an athletic scholarship (unless they joined the team in the 2022-23 season without an athletic scholarship as an incoming student), but freshmen, sophomores, and incoming transfer students playing for UHartford cannot play on an athletic scholarship.    Beginning in 2024-25, no player on UHartford can compete for the Hawks on an athletic scholarship-- their packages will have to be re-tailored to academic and need-based financial aid if they wish to still compete for UHartford.

So, it will be interesting to see if the UHartford women's soccer team could get an undefeated regular season vs the CCC opponents, but the real test will be two years from now, as there is no postseason this year for UHartford.   I am writing this post because the student commentators for Montclair State and Emory were confused by the #1 Massey rating for UHartford on the current DIII Massey ratings and thought that UHartford may be eligible for the DIII tournament this season-- the answer to that question is no-- UHartford cannot compete for the national DIII championship in any sport until the 2025-26 academic year.

BTW, the coaches picked Western New England as the favorite to repeat as CCC women's soccer champions going into league play.

[Ron Boerger]

We don't get a lot of D1s moving to D3 (Centenary(LA) in 2011 may be the last example) but there is usually a hangover when some scholarship athletes opt to stick around.  St. Thomas(TX) moved from NAIA-I to D3 a few years back and they dominated the SCAC women's basketball scene for a couple years until their scholarship athletes graduated/moved on - but due to the transition period were unable to represent the conference in postseason play as Hartford is experiencing.

Transitioning programs are usually impacted as much by coaches leaving for greener pastures and seeing their overall numbers being reduced since the D3 cost model almost always won't support schools spending as much on coaches or support staff.