INDIANAPOLIS-- The NCAA Division III Field Hockey Committee announced on Sunday the field of 24 teams that will compete in the 2016 NCAA Division III Field Hockey Championship.

Saint Joseph's College, which earned an automatic NCAA bid after defeating Simmons College in the Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) Championship Saturday, will travel to New Jersey Wednesday to play Montclair State University, which received one of five at-large berths, in the first round of the tournament, start time TBD. 

Sixteen teams will compete in eight first-round games on campus sites Wednesday, Nov. 9. The eight first-round winners, along with the eight teams that received a first-round bye, will compete at four campus sites during second/third-round play, Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 12 and 13. 

The winners of the four sites will advance to the semifinals and final, Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 19 and 20, at McCooey Field on the campus of William Smith College in Geneva, New York. Semifinals will be played at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Eastern time, Saturday, November 19, with the championship game being played at 1 p.m. Eastern time, Sunday, Nov. 20.  Championship information, including information about tickets, is available at here.

RELATED: 2016 bracket

Eighteen conferences have been awarded automatic qualification for their champions into the 2016 championship. One team was selected from Pool B, which consists of independent institutions and institutions that are members of conferences that do not meet the requirements for automatic qualification. Finally, five berths were reserved for Pool C, which consists of institutions from automatic-qualifying conferences that are not the conference champions and the remaining teams from Pool B.

The 18 conferences and schools receiving automatic qualification are:

The one Pool B team is:

• Rhodes College

• Franklin & Marshall College
• Middlebury College
• Montclair State University
• University of Rochester
• Trinity College (Connecticut)

The dates, sites and pairings are listed on the complete championship bracket.  For more information about the championship, log on to www.ncaa.com.

In 2015, Middlebury College avenged two regular-season losses by defeating Bowdoin College 1-0 at Turf Field at Washington and Lee University. It was Middlebury's second national title, the last one occurring in 1998. 

 

 

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Saint Joseph's College is Maine's only Catholic liberal arts college, providing a supportive, personalized and career-focused education for more than 100 years. From its 474-acre campus on the shores of Sebago Lake, the College offers more than 40 undergraduate programs to a population of approximately 1,000 students. Saint Joseph's College Online provides certificates, undergraduate and advanced degrees for working adults through an online learning program. For more, visit www.sjcme.edu.