Grand Canyon’s men’s volleyball program will join the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association in 2010.

The Antelopes will face the other six members – Ball State, IPFW, Lewis, Loyola (Illinois), Ohio State and Quincy – in double round-robin play and will be eligible for the MIVA postseason tournament.

“It’s great for our school to be associated with one of the top two conferences in the country,” said Grand Canyon coach Chad Speer, grouping the MIVA with the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, which includes current national champion UC Irvine.

Ohio State, which reached the national semifinals last season and was ranked 10th, joins Lewis (No. 12), Ball State (tied for No. 13) and Loyola (tied for No. 13) as having finished the season in the top 15 of the final American Volleyball Coaches Association national rankings.

“It’s exciting for us to be in a conference like that,” said Speer, who completed his first season in charge of the Antelopes in 2009. “It is a great recruiting tool for us both on the West Coast and in the Midwest.”

-MIVA Sports Information Director D.C. Koehl