VMI Swimming & Diving Will Be a part of NEC Subsequent Season, Host Conference Championship

The VMI males’s and ladies’s swimming & diving groups will be a part of the NEC subsequent season as an affiliate member. The faculty may even host the 2027 NEC Swimming & Diving Championships at Goodall Pool within the VMI Aquatic Center in its inaugural season within the convention.

The 2027 NEC Swimming & Diving Championships will run from February 17-20.

The VMI males’s swimming and diving staff first joined the NEC in 2003 after the varsity left the SoCon for the upstart Big South Conference, which doesn’t sponsor swimming. When the varsity added a ladies’s staff in 2005, it additionally joined the NEC.

In 2007, each packages left to change into constitution members of the Coastal Collegiate Swimming Association (now Coastal Collegiate Sports Association), a secondary convention designed to conglomerate east coast swimming & diving packages with out massive convention participation.

Then within the 2017-2018 season, the swimming & diving packages joined the America East Conference. Last season, the ladies’s program completed seventh out of seven groups and the boys’s program completed 4th out of 6 groups, although each finishes belied the progress this system has made lately.

Last season, the boys’s staff broke 10 faculty data and the ladies broke 20. Scott Thacker, who has spent the final 4 years with this system, was not too long ago introduced as the brand new head coach at Army. VMI has not but introduced his substitute.

Now they’ll be a part of the NEC, the place final yr Howard University swept the staff titles – together with a first-ever win for the Howard ladies.

The NEC will now have 7 ladies’s groups and 6 males’s groups. The features a new males’s program at Stonehill College anticipated to launch subsequent season, and the departure of the Saint Francis ladies, who’re going to D3. Crucially, this now permits males’s champions from the NEC to earn computerized {qualifications} for the NCAA Championships – which requires a minimal of 5 packages to depend.

The America East is mostly a a lot quicker, and deeper, convention than the NEC total, although there are standout exceptions.

Both genders within the America East Championship will nonetheless have at the very least 5 groups.

VMI has hosted the final three editions of the America East Championships. The $44 million VMI Aquatic Center was devoted on January 7, 2023. It consists of an indoor 50-meter pool, 1-meter springboards, 3-meter springboards, and a 5-meter diving platform, plus seating for 570 spectators.

“We are excited to join the NEC as our swimming and diving programs continue to improve each year,” says VMI Director of Athletics Jamaal Walton. “As a cadet, I vividly remember our swimming and diving program capturing back-to-back NEC Invitationals in 2006 and 2007. These programs have a championship mindset, and I love our chances heading into the NEC this upcoming season.”

VMI can also be an NEC affiliate member in males’s lacrosse. A spokesperson for the varsity cited this as a main cause for the transfer.

“We also believe it will put us in a better position to have competitive success,” the spokesperson mentioned, alluding to the relative high quality of competitors within the two conferences.

2026-2027 America East Field

Women (so as of final yr’s convention end):

• Bryant – 775
• New Hampshire – 660
• Vermont – 613
• UMBC – 446
• Binghamton – 403
• Maine – 314

Men (so as of final yr’s convention end):

• UMBC – 805.5
• Binghamton – 748
• Bryant – 572.5
• NJIT – 353
• Maine – 347

2026-2026 NEC Field

Women (so as of final yr’s convention end):

• Howard – 856
• Central Connecticut State – 837
• Wagner – 407
• LIU – 334
• Stonehill – 299
• Le Moyne – 275
• VMI – new

Men (so as of final yr’s convention end):

• Howard – 859
• Wagner – 787.5
• Le Moyne – 684.5
• LIU – 576
• VMI – new
• Stonehill College – new