Sports schedules set for fall of 2008

HAVERFORD, Pa. - The Fords have finalized their schedules for the 2008 fall sports season and NCAA championship-caliber opponents litter the upcoming landscape.

Women’s soccer kicks off their 2008 slate in late August with their own tournament that includes Lynchburg (Va.) College, an NCAA Elite Eight team from last season’s national championship tournament. The Fords, in fact, play three squads this season that made it into the 2007 Elite Eight including The College of New Jersey and national runner-up Messiah (Pa.) College. In addition to their annual Centennial Conference opponents the women include Moravian (Pa.) College, yet another national tournament participant, among their non-conference opponents this fall.

The men’s soccer schedule is highlighted by a visit from conference rival Johns Hopkins University, a 2007 NCAA tournament participant, and a trip to sunny California in mid-October where they will take on Occidental College and Cal Tech, each a member of the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.

Men’s cross country will host their annual Alumni race in early-September before embarking on a 2008 season in which they seek to extend their conference championship winning streak to a 25th season. Coming off their national runner-up finish at the 2007 NCAA Division III championship meet, the men will open their 2008 schedule by hosting D-I Villanova, then traveling to the Paul Short Invitational at Lehigh University where they will go up against perennially top D-I teams in the region such as Bucknell University and Lehigh.

Following their own Alumnae meet, the women harriers will also begin their season hosting Villanova with local rivals Byrn Mawr and Swarthmore thrown in the mix. The 26th place team in the country at last year’s NCAA championship meet, the Fords will look to capture their first Centennial Conference title in 2008 after finishing in the runner-up slot for the eighth consecutive season last fall.

Field hockey opens their 2008 season with a pair of games on the road before returning home to play their first game on the newly turfed Swan Field where they will play host to Rowan (N.J.) University, a national tournament Sweet 16 squad last year and the 2002 national champion. The road does not get any easier for the Fords during the 2008 campaign as they travel to Ursinus College in mid-September to square off against the 2006 national champion and No. 3 team in the nation at the end of last season, then play host to 2007 national semifinalist Lebanon Valley in a mid-October match-up on Swan Field.

The two-time defending Centennial champion volleyball squad is coming off a national tournament Sweet 16 campaign and will play two of the three teams that were in the Mid-Atlantic Regional hosted by Haverford in Gooding Arena in the 2007 postseason. Following a visit to Atlanta, Ga., for the Emory University tournament hosted by an Eagle team that reached the NCAA Final Eight last year, Elizabethtown College hosts the Fords and will attempt to exact revenge on the Haverford squad that ended the Blue Jays’ season last year in the Regional. In October the Fords host Juniata, the team that put a stop to Haverford’s season in that same Regional. Two other NCAA tournament participants, Stevens Tech (Final Eight) and M.I.T., are scheduled to face the Fords in a tournament hosted by Tech in September, and Haverford will make the same trek to Hoboken, N.J., in October to again challenge the Ducks from Tech.