Jun 18, 2010 7:33:33 AM

The Collegiate Water Polo Association will reorganize the league's Divisions I and II women's teams from three divisions to two. The change, effective for the 2011 season only, means all 12 teams in the league will appear in the 2011 conference championship field, up from eight in recent years.

The reorganization comes in response to a new NCAA requirement that all conferences in which division play is contested must meet a standard by which divisions with fewer than five teams must play double round-robin, while divisions with five or more teams can contest either single- or double round-robin competition.

Beginning with the 2010 season, the CWPA separated its Divisions I and II teams from its Division III teams, allowing Division III teams to compete only against each other. This reduced the number of teams competing in each of the CWPA's other divisions in 2010 (or example, the northern division had only three members and the southern division had four).

The 12 CWPA teams will reorganize into South and West Divisions, and each of the teams will play a single round-robin format in their division. Bucknell, Gannon, Hartwick, Indiana, Mercyhurst and Michigan will compete in the West, with Brown, George Washington, Harvard, Princeton, Maryland and Salem International (which is considering dropping the sport) will compete in the South Division.

All teams will advance to the CWPA Eastern Championship at Indiana in the spring of 2011, with the top four teams receiving first-round byes and the remaining eight teams competing in two games on Friday, one on Saturday and one on Sunday. The top four teams will play one game each day.

If one institution decides to drop the sport, the conference also passed an 11-team championship field model that features the top five teams earning first-round byes and the remaining six teams playing in the first round. The top five seeds and first-round winners advance to an eight-team championship field. The first-round losers advance to a round-robin format to determine the bottom three places in the tournament.

Conference officials said the organization of the conference will be re-examined in 2012, after Notre Dame College (an NAIA school) joins the conference as a full member in 2011-12.

The CWPA recommended that all teams play each other outside their divisions to provide for additional scores to assist in the conference championship selection process.