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CBS Sports to air NCAA fall championships show Dec. 25

NCAA.org

For the tenth consecutive year, all of the NCAA championships will receive television exposure, including 12 fall championships being featured in a one-hour special.

CBS Sports Presents Championships of the NCAA will air at 1 p.m. Eastern, Sunday, Dec. 25, on CBS. Highlights and stories from cross country, field hockey, soccer, water polo and volleyball will be featured in the program.

As individuals and teams pursue their ultimate goal to become an NCAA champion, some of the feature stories include:

• The College of Saint Rose faces off against Grand Valley State University in the NCAA Division II Women’s Soccer Championship from Pensacola, Fla. If victorious, this will be the first national championship in Division II women’s soccer for Saint Rose.
  
• The NCAA Division II Men’s Soccer Championship was also held in Pensacola, Fla., with Fort Lewis College facing off against Lynn University. Fort Lewis would have to play into overtime in pursuit of its second men’s soccer national championship in the last three years and third soccer title overall.
  
• In Division III men’s soccer, Ohio Wesleyan Head Coach Jay Martin enters the national semifinals chasing not just a second national championship, but a major milestone: two more victories would break the all-time wins record in men’s college soccer. Standing in the way is Montclair State University in the semis, and eventually Calvin College in the championship in San Antonio, Texas.
  
• Messiah College seeks its third national championship in the last four years, and fourth overall, as it takes on Wheaton College (Ill.) in the NCAA Division III Women’s Soccer Championship in San Antonio, Texas. Messiah Head Coach Scott Frey attempts to make it a family affair as well as it would be the first title with his daughter, Alicia, on the team.
  
• Defending team champions Villanova University, led by last year’s individual champion Sheila Reid, looked for a repeat in Terre Haute, Ind., at the NCAA Division I Women’s Cross Country Championships. Reid would make a strong push for herself and the school to duplicate the individual and team championships, but Georgetown University and the University of Washington had visions of its own for winning the championship.
  
• Arizona Freshman Lawi Lalang has won every race this season leading up to the NCAA Division I Men’s Cross Country Championships. Lawi looks to complete a perfect season competing with the best of the best at this year’s championships in Terre Haute, Ind.
  
• Spokane, Wash., was the site for the NCAA Division II Cross Country Championships. On the men’s side, Adams State College has won the last three championships with Western State College of Colorado finishing second each time. Is this the year the Mountaineers take the title? On the women’s side, the defending individual champion is senior Neely Spence of Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania. Spence, who is coached by her father, looks to close out her collegiate cross country career with another title.
  
• For the third consecutive season, the University of North Carolina faced off against the University of Maryland for the Division I Field Hockey Championship. The championship would prove to be a nail-biter with a dramatic comeback to tie the game at the end of regulation and force overtime in Louisville, Ky.
  
• The University of Southern California was out to make history as the first program to win a men’s water polo championship in four consecutive years. USC, also going for their seventh men’s water polo title overall, would have to beat their cross-town rival UCLA to achieve this historic feat in Berkeley, Calif.
  
• The NCAA Division III Women’s Volleyball Championship featured a matchup between Wittenburg University and Christopher Newport University, neither of which had made it to a women’s volleyball championship match before. Wittenberg senior Hillary Monnin has been the inspirational leader of the team as she has spent the season battling Hodgkin’s Lymphoma from the sidelines.

CBS Sports’ Tracy Wolfson will serve as host of the CBS Sports Presents Championships of the NCAA. The fall highlight show was produced by Mark Burghart, with Sarah Rinaldi, Todd Keryc, Jawn Morales, Bryan Kosowski and Lindsay Goward serving as the feature producers.

CBS Sports has aired 27 seasonal shows from the three NCAA sports seasons (fall, winter, spring) over the last nine years. The Dec. 25 show is the 28^th edition of CBS Sports Presents Championships of the NCAA. Each seasonal show features highlights and unique NCAA student-athlete stories from a variety of NCAA Division I, II and III championships.

For more information about NCAA championships, log on to www.NCAA.com.