WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (Conference News) - The King's College athletic program will grow by two sports when the college introduces NCAA varsity men's volleyball and women's golf teams, Associate Vice President and Executive Director of Intercollegiate Athletics and Recreation Cheryl Ish announced.
King's currently fields 25 NCAA varsity sports for men and women and will move up to 27 when men's volleyball and women's golf begin play. Among members of the Middle Atlantic Conference, King's will stand in a tie in with Stevenson University which will already fields 27 NCAA-sponsored sports. King's will also be the only college in the MAC to carry all 27 sports sponsored by the conference.
"We are excited to announce the addition of NCAA women's golf and men's volleyball to our already robust athletic offerings," Ish stated. "The addition of these sports is a further example of our commitment to the NCAA Division III philosophy of providing broad-based athletic opportunities for our students. The growth of the athletic program over the last four years has been purposeful and compliments the enrollment initiatives of the college to attract students of strong academic caliber who also want to pursue their athletic passion. Our student athletes are great ambassadors of the college and we are thrilled to welcome more Monarchs to campus."
King's will become the ninth college in the MAC to sponsor NCAA varsity men's volleyball. Currently, Stevenson, Messiah, Arcadia, Alvernia, Wilkes, Misericordia, and Widener sponsor the sport while Eastern University will be adding men's volleyball in 2018-19. Stevenson has the longest tenured program of any college in the MAC starting the sport in 1999 when the college was named Villa Julie College.
King's at one time had a highly-successful men's club volleyball team from 1992-2001 which earned an outstanding record of 252-53 and was a Top-25 nationally-ranked Division II Club Team for seven years. The team placed third in the 2002 national club tournament while also finishing in the top-five in 1999 and 2001. The team won four Middle Atlantic Club Volleyball Conference championships during that time.
Women's golf is one of the fastest growing sports in the MAC, which first began sponsoring the sport in 2010-11. Currently, 13 colleges sponsor women's golf teams. They include Arcadia, Alvernia, Albright, Delaware Valley, Eastern, FDU-Florham, Hood, Lebanon Valley, Manhattanville, Misericordia, Widener, and Wilkes.
King's women's golf team will practice and play its home matches at the Wyoming Valley Country Club, which is also the home course of the college's men's team. The women's format at the WVCC is set as Par-73, 5,179-yards with a rating of 69.8 and a slope of 120.
Ish explained both men's volleyball and women's golf were selected as the newest additions at King's based on the scheduling and post-season opportunities available to student-athletes in each sport.
"Both sports are already sponsored by the Middle Atlantic Conference, which provides an immediate opportunity for a competitive schedule and the chance to compete in conference championships right away," Ish noted. "Men's volleyball will have a recruiting draw from the many high school teams sponsoring the sport regionally, while women's golf is a sport that is blossoming and has tremendous growth potential. King's is proud that we will have the distinction of being the only MAC Conference member to sponsor every MAC sport offering."
Ish said King's will wait until 2019-20 to begin competition to allow the new head coaches of each sport a year to recruit student-athletes to the college. Ish also indicated that searches for head coaches of both programs will occur in the upcoming spring months.
Men's volleyball and women's golf will become the fifth and sixth new sports King's will have added in recent years. The college instituted a varsity indoor and outdoor track and field program that began in 2015-16, along with men's and women's ice hockey programs that recently concluded their first seasons of competition.
King's full list of NCAA varsity sports include as follows:
Men: Baseball, Basketball, Cross Country, Football, Golf, Ice Hockey, Lacrosse, Soccer, Swimming, Tennis, Indoor Track & Field, Outdoor Track & Field, Wrestling, and Men's Volleyball in 2019-2020.
Women: Basketball, Cross Country, Field Hockey, Ice Hockey, Lacrosse, Soccer, Softball, Swimming, Tennis, Indoor Track & Field, Outdoor Track & Field, Volleyball, and women's golf in 2019-2020.
King's also fields men's and women's club sport rugby programs that are not NCAA-sponsored sports.
Please Note: Student-athletes interested in King's new men's volleyball and women's golf programs can contact the following King's athletic department administrators for more information.
Men's Volleyball:
Director of Athletics Cheryl Ish, cherylish@kings.edu
Women's Golf:
Assistant Director of Athletics/Men's Golf Coach J.P. Andrejko, jpandrejko@kings.edu