The Peach Belt Conference has voted to reduce the maximum number of baseball and softball contests from 56 to 50 effective with the 2010 season as part of more comprehensive campaign to gain efficiencies and align with Division II’s “Life in the Balance” initiative.

PBC presidents and chancellors, acting on recommendations from the athletics directors council, voted on the measure at the league’s recent annual meeting. Other actions included separating the conference into competitive divisions in basketball and baseball beginning in 2009-10 and reducing the number of teams that qualify for PBC postseason tournaments in various sports.

PBC Commissioner Dave Brunk said the league acted based on better business practices and also in response to Division II’s review of playing and practice seasons that began in January. Division II in fact is weighing a proposal to make the same game reductions in baseball and softball that the Peach Belt just approved.

“Our meetings featured an in-depth discussion by an array of constituent groups regarding Bylaw 17 and its role as part of a larger effort to seek better business practices,” Brunk said. “The PBC has been implementing various measures for the past several months, but the actions taken at the annual meeting plot a bold new direction for our conference without compromising the student-athlete experience.”

In addition to reducing games in baseball and softball, PBC members also voted to eliminate the “rain day” provision in which visiting teams could stay over until Monday to complete a three-game weekend series that had been interrupted by weather. The new policy mandates that conference three-game series be completed on Saturday and Sunday (a doubleheader on one day and a single game on the other). Games affected by rain would not be rescheduled.

The new weather-related policy accompanies an existing PBC rule regarding travel to games that are subsequently washed out. Games can be rescheduled only if the visiting team has not left its campus before the game is called.

Conference members also voted to reinstate divisional play for men’s and women’s basketball and implement it for baseball beginning in 2009-10. For basketball, the East Division will be composed of Armstrong Atlantic State, Augusta State, Flagler, Francis Marion, Lander, UNC Pembroke and South Carolina Aiken, while the West will be represented by Clayton, Columbus State, Georgia College, Georgia Southwestern, Montevallo and North Georgia. The divisions in baseball are slightly different since only 12 of the PBC’s 13 members field teams, putting Augusta State in the West Division.

The conference schedule for basketball includes home-and-home dates between divisional teams and a split home-and-away slate for East-West matchups that would flip-flop the following year.

In baseball, teams would face all five teams in their division and only half of the other division in three-game series for 24 total conference games.

For the PBC postseason tournaments in those sports, the league will take the top four teams in each division and stage intra-divisional first rounds at campus sites before hosting the four winners at a neutral site in a Saturday-Sunday finals format.

“That’s a much more efficient format,” Brunk said, “and it still allows us to maintain our community-engagement weekend for basketball.”

Most of the league’s postseason tournaments in fact for team sports will be capped at about eight participating teams. Brunk said league members believe that aligns with the basic regional format for Division II championships and it provides an accurate accounting of competitiveness.

The new measures complement others the league already has taken or is considering taking in the near future. Those include:

• Eliminating in-person meetings for most constituent groups in favor of conference calls. In January, for example, coaches groups and select administrative committees began conducting their business meetings via phone.
• Instituting a travel-partner policy in basketball, softball and volleyball (the PBC began doing this last year).
• Focusing on weekend play to reduce costs and missed class time.
• Considering alternative scheduling methods, including pod play and multi-sport scheduling (this is an ongoing review).