Posted on: Saturday, February 5, 2005

Both Mainland teams will leave PacWest

Advertiser Staff

Four universities in Hawai'i are exploring several new alternatives for their NCAA Division II Pacific West Conference after yesterday's announcement that two teams are leaving for another conference.

Montana State-Billings and Western New Mexico will join four universities from Texas in the Heartland Conference effective July 1, 2005.

After the change, the Pacific West Conference will consist of the four universities in the islands — Hawai'i Pacific, Chaminade, Brigham Young-Hawai'i and Hawai'i-Hilo.

"We look forward to this change," said BYUH president Eric B. Shumway, who will serve as chief officer of the realigned PacWest Conference. "We want to keep the PacWest conference together because of the traditional relationships and friendly rivalries that have developed among the four Hawai'i universities over the years."

Under NCAA guidelines, the PacWest will lose its automatic recognition as an official conference because it will no longer satisfy the minimum requirement of at least six participating universities. So, for example, rather than receiving automatic berths into NCAA II regionals and finals, the universities from Hawai'i will effectively have to earn their way in as independents.

"The presidents of the four Hawai'i universities are willing to temporarily give up this automatic recognition as a message to the NCAA about the solidarity of our relationships," Shumway said.

Meanwhile, the presidents of the universities will aggressively explore several options to further strengthen the conference, Shumway explained. One possibility is to invite other universities, perhaps from the West Coast, to join the conference in the near future.

The Pacific West Conference was formed in 1992 by the merger of the Great Northwest Conference and the Continental Divide Conference.