The Division III Women’s Volleyball Committee discussed regional realignment at its recent annual meeting in Key West, Florida.

Under the current alignment, the committee faces a difficult task when it comes to selecting the at-large portion of the 60-team bracket. Most programs are in the Eastern part of the country — only 28 in fact are in the West.

The committee is proposing a different scheme to the Division III Championships Committee.

“We looked at realigning institutions to balance the number of schools in each region,” said volleyball committee chair Chad Schreiber. “That would make the regions more manageable and preserve regional integrity in selections.”

The committee believes it must do something now rather than later because the problem will only worsen in the immediate future with the continuing addition of schools sponsoring the sport and changes in conference composition.

“One of the driving scenarios is a lot of universities have been added to Division III,” Schreiber said. “And there are a number of provisional members who will be full Division III members in the next two to three years. It will continue to be difficult for us to do our job the best we can.”

Committee anticipate some concerns from coaches and other constituents, and members plan to get input from institutions, but they hope stakeholders in the sport at least realize that the goal is to ensure regional integrity.

Currently, some of the eight regional sites have more automatic qualifiers than spots at the regionals, and the committee finds it hard to maintain regional integrity because the AQs occupy all the regional spots. That means before the committee even begins to select from pools B and C, teams already are being sent out of region, which creates more travel costs.

“When everyone sits back and realizes the reasons behind this — and the long-term implications — we can find a better competitive balance in terms of managing regions,” said Schreiber, who coaches at Lakeland College. “It will make for a better national championship.”

In addition to realignment, committee members also discussed ways to enhance the championship at the final site. Ideas included conducting coaching clinics and perhaps a “bring-your-daughter” promotion.

Committee members think there’s room to grow coaches’ attendance at the finals site, which will be held in Salem, Virginia, for a second consecutive year.

“Right now Division III only has its meeting at the annual coaches convention, which is associated with the Division I championship,” Schreiber said. “Coaches may be budgeting time only to go to the national convention. Maybe the finals could be the site of a regional meeting for Division III coaches.”