Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association

Infobox sports league

pixels = 150px
caption = EIVA logo
sport = Volleyball
founded = 1977
teams = 13
country = USA
champion = Penn State (Tait), Springfield (Hay)
website = [http://www.eivavolleyball.com/ www.eivavolleyball.com]

The Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (EIVA) is a college athletic conference whose member schools compete in men's volleyball. Its member institutions are located in the Northeast United States.

The EIVA Tournament champion receives an automatic bid to the NCAA National Semifinals. The two other major volleyball conferences, the MIVA (Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association) and the MPSF (Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) also send their league tournament champions to the National Semifinals. The 4th team is an at-large bid that is chosen from one of the 3 leagues by a committee of coaches from these leagues.

The conference is divided into two divisions. The higher division is named the Tait Division. The lower division is named the Hay Division. The conference uses a system of promotion and relegation whereby the last place team from the Tait Division gets relegated to the Hay for the following season and the highest ranked Hay Division team moves to the Tait. For 2008, NJIT will move to the Tait Division, while Rutgers-Newark will be relegated to the Hay Division. Previously, there was a second lower division (equal to Hay) named the Sweeney Division, but this was eliminated for the 2006 season. The two lower divisions were merged into one division at that time.

Penn State has won every conference championship for the past 17 years, with the exception of 1998 when Princeton captured the title.

Tait Division

This is the higher ranked division of the conference. Penn State has generally been the strongest team in the conference and has won ten straight titles through the 2008 season and the EIVA's only two NCAA national championships (1994 and 2008).

Hay Division

The Hay Division is considered the lower division of the EIVA. The champion of this division moves up to the Tait Division the following season.

Notes:
*East Stroudsburg, by finishing in last place of the Tait Division in 2008, will drop to the Hay Division for 2009.
*Springfield won the Hay in 2008 and takes East Stroudsburg's spot in the Tait Division
*Vassar College dropped from the EIVA after competing in the Hay division in 2006 season.
*Queens College eliminated its program in 2006; it most recently competed in the Hay Division.

External links

* [http://www.eivavolleyball.com/landing/index Official Website of the Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association]
* [http://avca.org/CollegiateHome.asp?id=6 AVCA - American Volleyball Coaches Association - Men's Volleyball]