Kicking off the new year

The SLIAC released preseason coaches’ polls earlier this week and that can only mean one thing…competition is right around the corner. September 1 is the first permissible date of competition for the Conference’s five fall sports and the vast majority of our teams waste no time getting their seasons started with 10 soccer teams (six men, four women), four volleyball teams and eight cross country teams (four men, four women) in competition on that date.

Back to those aforementioned coaches polls. Fontbonne and Greenville were selected as co-favorites by the men’s soccer coaches, Webster is the preseason pick of the volleyball coaches and Principia gets the nod from the women’s soccer coaches. The men’s soccer co-favorites both took home championship plaques last season as Fontbonne won the regular season title and Greenville won the Tournament title. Webster and Principia are both in the hunt for their third straight regular season title.

With the start of the 2009-10 academic and athletic year, the SLIAC welcomes Spalding University in Louisville, Ky. to the Conference. The Golden Eagles sponsor 11 sports in which the SLIAC sponsors a Championship as well as women’s golf and women’s bowling. Spalding teams and student-athletes are eligible for all SLIAC regular season titles and awards. However, as a second-year NCAA provisional member, it is not eligible to compete for the SLIAC’s automatic bid to NCAA Tournaments and therefore will not participate in Conference Tournaments except in sports in which the Tournament also determines the Conference Champion (cross country, golf and tennis).

Also new for 2009-10 is the Conference’s recent announcement of its use of Twitter and a Blog as additional avenues to deliver news and information, to provide a unique look into the SLIAC and to attract more visitors to the SLIAC website.

The St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference looks forward to another great year for our student-athletes, teams and institutions. We thank you for your continued support of the SLIAC and hope you will return here regularly to read inside stories of what is going on with our student-athletes, teams and institutions.