What Division III sport should we add a board for next?

[bill135]

I would suggest Softball as a natural addition since you already have Baseball. According to the NCAA, there were 399 Women's Division III Softball teams in 2006. For 2006, the number of players in lacrosse vs. baseball/softball were as follows:
Men's Lacrosse: 4,349
Women's Lacrosse: 3,114
Men's Baseball: 10,656
Women's Softball: 6,754

So, 17,000+ for baseball/softball; 7,000+ for lacrosse. This should be an easy call. I'd love to see Softball added for this spring. While you're at it, could you get the domain name, D3Softball.com?

[Gray Fox]

Have you considered cricket?

Haverford boasts the only varsity cricket team in the United States, and ESPN Magazine has called Haverford "the epicenter of Philadelphia's cricket craze".[10] The team, which was started in 1833, is generally accepted as the first cricket club exclusively for Americans.[11] Haverford has a strong rivalry with the University of Pennsylvania's club team. The first match in this series was played in 1864 and is believed to be the 3rd oldest intercollegiate game in America after the 1852 Harvard-Yale crew and 1859 Amherst-Williams baseball contests.

[AptosDad]

I'd like to cast my vote for .......

WRESTLING

[old ends]

I went with softball..

[Prince Cooter]

I would love to see a tennis section!!! We have collegetennisonline, but considering we are all D3...there is no attention.

Could we do a sub-section for tennis? Like you have for soccer and lacrosse???

[Pat Coleman]

Well, we have an entire site for soccer:
http://www.d3soccer.com

I wouldn't say the lacrosse boards are a big success right now. 

[beyondthearc]

I believe that volleyball would be a good addition.  It is the major women's sport in the fall in the midwest

[tmerton]

How about golf? Now that Bobby Knight has retired he could do some instructional videos for you. 

[NCWC]

I would go with softball


Sunday, March 09, 2008
Wesleyan softball opens with four wins in Myrtle Beach

Myrtle Beach, SC - The North Carolina Wesleyan softball team kicked off its 2008 schedule in style over the weekend by going 4-0 in Myrtle Beach, SC. The Bishops opened play on Saturday with a twinbill sweep of Penn State-Berks by 10-2 and 12-4 scores, respectively. Wesleyan then turned in a dominating 9-0 win over Penn State-Altoona on Sunday morning before wrapping up a perfect showing with a 10-7 victory over Sweet Briar. A host of Bishops enjoyed productive weekends at the plate, while hurlers Libby Fulford and Kacie Brandes each earned two wins in the circle.

On Saturday versus Berks, freshmen Chelsea Gentry and Brittany Nichols enjoyed solid collegiate debuts as each went 2-for-4 with an RBI. Gentry recorded two doubles, as did Fulford, who was also 2-for-4 at the plate. Senior Katie Dunavant was 2-for-3 and drove in a run.

Fulford was dominant on the mound, tossing a complete game two-hitter while striking out 11. The game was called after five innings.

In the nightcap, Wesleyan earned the 12-4 win in six innings. Gentry again stood out with a 3-for-4 performance, including a double and RBI. Seniors Ashlee Bass and Denise Pope, along with Nichols and freshman Carla Pridgen, all went 2-for-4 offensively.

Like Fulford, Brandes threw a complete game two-hitter. She struck out nine on the day.

On Sunday, the Bishops and Fulford earned a 9-0 win over Altoona in six innings. Gentry was 3-for-3 with an RBI, while Bass went 2-for-4 with a homerun and three batted in. Jessica Poindexter and Payton Gordon each went 2-for-3.

Fulford (2-0) again dominated on the mound by striking out 15 batters and allowing only three hits in her first shutout of the season.

In the tournament's final game, the Bishops' 10-7 win over Sweet Briar saw Nichols go 2-for-4 and blast her first homerun.  Bass and Whitney Moshier also went deep.

Brandes (2-0) earned the win in five innings of work.

The Battling Bishops' home opener will be Wednesday at 2:00 p.m.  Wesleyan will be hosting Division II opponent Fayetteville State University at Edge Field.

[LCasid]

Well, we have an entire site for soccer:
http://www.d3soccer.com

I wouldn't say the lacrosse boards are a big success right now. 

yeah, laxpower.com is too big of an animal for any other lacrosse boards to be particularly successful.

[LCasid]

I voted field hockey. it looks like on the poll softball, volleyball, wrestling, ad FH are the only ones remaining without a board. I think all of them would be good addition, but I think wrestling would be the least successful since there is such a plethora of schools who don't offer it, plus it's one of the sports that is shrinking across all divisions along with mostly all of the traditional Olympic sports, track excluded. In 95-96 there were 119 D3 wrestling teams with 2404 participants. In 2005-06 there were 97 (a 22 team decrease) and 2343 participants (a 62 participant decrease). In 85-86 there were 130 teams and 3279 participants, ever since then participation has been consistently under 2500 and it was consistently over 3000 in the early 80s. So as far as I see it, the market for a wrestling board is going to be getting smaller if the trend continues.

Field Hockey is also steadily growing as well, with 2889 D3 participants and 135 teams in 95-96 to 140 teams and 3171 participants in 05-06. FH has also had over 2800 participants for 10 straight years and over 3000 for six of the past seven. So not only is FH bigger in terms of number of participants and number of teams, it is witnessing an upward in growth while wrestling is shrinking.

Softball has also just absolutely exploded in participation since the mid-90's jumping from the 4000s to nearly 7000 in 05-06. Volleyball has witnessed the same trend, from the 4000s in the mid-90's to nearly 6000 in 05-06.

So to me, if you are looking at long term potential to grab an audience, wrestling should be at the bottom of the list of the four remaining on the poll since it has by far the lowest amounts of teams and participation and is also the only sport that is shrinking.

[Pat Coleman]

More people play women's basketball than men's basketball as well, but that doesn't translate into posts.

[Pat Coleman]

I am speaking to your assertion that field hockey would be a good add.

Are we looking to "grab an audience" or provide a place for conversations that would actually take place?

Not sure why wrestling would automatically get little traffic because it overlaps hoops, while field hockey overlaps the far more popular football. There may be fewer participants, but how many fans are there? That's the target.

Let me know when you're done editing and deleting your posts so I can answer them.

[LCasid]

yes, but neither one of those sports is dwindling in size either like wrestling.

wrestling will be in the same season as the two basketballs, and since virtually every single school has basketball, I would expect it would get very little traffic...

FH, softball, and volleyball would be in a better position to get traffic due to its wider popularity levels and the fact that it doesn't have to compete with one of the "big two" at a lot of schools since they aren't during the winter season and a lot of schools don't have football...

[LCasid]

Are we looking to "grab an audience" or provide a place for conversations that would actually take place?

I don't run your website, you should know the answer to that question...

Not sure why wrestling would automatically get little traffic because it overlaps hoops, while field hockey overlaps the far more popular football. There may be fewer participants, but how many fans are there? That's the target.

I never said it automatically would, read what I said, I said I would expect. I never knew expect meant automatically, but thanks for notifying me of that so I can remember that for future instances. Football is a more popular sport, but a lot of schools don't even have that. Therefore, FH doesn't have to compete with football at a lot of schools so there will be more fans likely to attend FH games since there is no football at said schools.

I would pull out attendance figures to compare FH/SB/VB attendance to wrestling but the ncaa website doesn't even have wrestling stats of any sort available and doesn't supply SB attendance figures.