The Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association will be welcoming back an old friend for the 2025 season. Sacred Heart has been approved for membership after a unanimous vote of conference coaches.
The addition brings the EIVA membership to seven teams from the current six.
The request for membership by the Pioneers follows the announcement by their athletic department in October 2023 of a move to the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. The multi-sport MAAC does not have men’s volleyball like the school’s previous home, the Northeast Conference.
Sacred Heart had been a member of the EIVA from 1993 through the 2022 season, when it left as the NEC added men’s volleyball as a conference sport.
“We are very happy to have Sacred Heart coming back to the EIVA,” Commissioner Russ Yurk said. “With the school’s long membership previously, there was already a lot of familiarity. Combining that with their plans for the future, there was very little debate among our coaches about the decision.”
SHU is the EIVA’s first new member since 2022, when Saint Francis College Brooklyn was admitted for one season in 2022 before it, too, joined its other athletic teams in the NEC.
The Pioneers, under second-year head coach Adam Niemczynowicz, have a 10-15 record in 2024 and are 2-6 in the NEC. They have met four EIVA programs on the court this season, including a second contest at George Mason on March 29. The Pios have a 2-3 record against the EIVA this year.
Niemczynowicz also has EIVA roots. He is a 2004 graduate of Concordia College and played for the Clippers from 2001-03, making the EIVA Championship Tournament each season, including the 2001 title match.
“It’s exciting to go back to the place we’ve considered home for 30 years,” Niemczynowicz said. “For me, it is going back to where I played my collegiate career. It’s exciting for the program and our student athletes to compete against high-level, great teams to enhance the growth of our program and continue to get better. We love the challenge of high competition and looking forward to the new season and new challenges.”
The Pioneers’ home court, the William H. Pitt Center, is scheduled for renovations beginning this spring through the fall.
The EIVA is the oldest men’s collegiate volleyball conference in the Eastern U.S., formed as the Eastern Collegiate Volleyball League in 1971.