The Cabrini athletic department has decided to move to a new conference after being a part of the Colonial States Athletic Conference (CSAC) for 26 years.
Cabrini made the transition to the NCAA Division III Atlantic East Conference early July along with six other schools including: Neumann University, Gwynedd Mercy University, Immaculata University, Marywood University, Wesley College and Marymount University.
According to d3sports.com, the Atlantic East conference was established in order to “foster athletic competition and cooperation among academically selective, private colleges located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. The geographic focus will bring together some of the top colleges in the region, while still allowing for a strong conference of like-minded institutions, all of which integrate competitive athletics into the student-athlete’s university experience.”
Many coaches at Cabrini believe that this was a change for the better. Kate Pearson, the head coach of the women’s basketball team, said that they made the switch because some teams felt like they were not gaining anything from playing lower-tiered teams.
“We’ve done very well to the point where at times it was uneven. The top teams in the Colonial States Athletic Conference seemed to really win easily,” said Pearson. “We wanted to put a greater a footprint in the NCAA tournament.”
Even though Cabrini women’s basketball was doing remarkably well in CSAC by becoming the first women’s basketball team in conference history to claim four consecutive conference championships in 2016, the athletic department agreed.
“[Playing in CSAC] wasn’t making the teams any better; it wasn’t fun either as there were significant wins or losses. The goal is to make it a more competitive conference,” Pearson said. “For basketball, we only played half of the teams once and half of the teams twice so now, with the new conference, we play everyone twice.”
“I am super excited about the transition, the conference will be super competitive which will make every game that much better,” Kate Lannon, sophomore education major and a member of the women’s basketball team at Cabrini, said.
There is both excitement and nervousness in the transition. Although there are new and more opportunities for teams to compete on the national level, including the swim team who is now included in the Atlantic East Conference, it is said that this change is going to raise the bar for both the coaches and athletes.
“I think because we’re putting our mark on (this conference); there is excitement. Everyone’s going to step up and that’s how you get better by playing better competition. In the long-run, it’s going to be better for us,” Pearson said.
