CMS Selected as Host of 2023 NCAA Division III Women's Volleyball Championship

CLAREMONT, Calif. - Claremont-Mudd-Scripps will serve as the host of the 2023 NCAA Division III Women's Volleyball Championship at Roberts Pavilion, its state of the art home facility, the NCAA announced this morning.

CMS will try to continue its championship pedigree at its home facility in 2023, after earning a national title in 2017 with a 3-0 win over Wittenberg, and advancing to nationals in 2014, where it fell in five sets in the quarterfinals. The Athenas have routinely been ranked in the top 10 in the nation in the last decade, and have won at least one NCAA Tournament match in six of the last seven seasons. CMS has advanced to the Round of 32 in each of the last two years since the national title, with wins over Augsburg in 2018 and Washington University in 2019, but fell to top-five Carthage in five sets this past fall in the second round. 

Eight regional winners advance to the NCAA Division III Volleyball Championships in November, with the quarterfinals, semifinals and finals taking place over a three-day span. All of those matches will be held at Roberts Pavilion, which opened in 2016 and has served as the host site for the SCIAC Volleyball Championships in each of the last three seasons, with the Athenas winning all three. 

Named in honor of CMC trustee and alumnus George R. Roberts '66 P'93, Roberts Pavilion is the spectacular fitness and events center for Claremont McKenna College and the athletic center for the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps intercollegiate, intramural, and physical education programs. Designed by the award-winning creative team at John Friedman Alice Kimm Architects, the LEED Gold-certified Pavilion features a state-of-the-art fitness center and a generous venue area with a seating capacity of approximately 2,200, which provides hosting opportunities for important college and community events.  

Bidding for 86 of 90 NCAA championships began in August 2019 and more than 3,000 bid applications were ultimately submitted. Each sport committee, per division, selected the host sites it believed would provide the ultimate experience for the respective student-athletes, resulting in more than 450 total championship event sites being awarded. More than 54,000 student-athletes compete in NCAA championships each year. The four championships not included in the process due to preexisting site arrangements are: Division I baseball, Division I football, Division I softball and Division III women's ice hockey.