Students and staff gathered in Village Park on Thursday, August 15 to celebrate Point Park’s admittance into Division II athletics in the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA). Point Park begins conference matchups this fall as an official member of the Mountain East Conference (MEC).
Point Park was invited into the MEC last January after applying for membership to the NCAA. The NCAA granted membership in July, officially welcoming the university into the MEC.
Including Point Park, the MEC has 11 members, and the Pioneers will compete in 15 of 23 sports sponsored by the conference.
“Going NCAA is for the entire university,” Vice President of athletics Scott Swain said. “It’s not just the student athletes and the coaches.”
In addition to the Division II transition, Point Park is adding four teams to athletics. Men’s and women’s lacrosse and wrestling will begin competing in the 2025-26 school year. Four new head coaches were hired this summer to begin recruiting and building the programs.
“In the athletic department as a whole, there’s a really good positive energy going on,” men’s lacrosse head coach Cody Golon said. “We’re heading into [Division II], they’re playing new teams, it’s going to create new rivals. So that part of it, I’m really excited about.”
Full acceptance into NCAA Division II athletics is a three-year process. The MEC has granted Point Park the ability to compete in conference championships during their first year of membership, although this is not always the case. A school’s eligibility to compete in conference championships during their first year is decided by the conference.
“Our coaches and our student athletes are still going to be competing for conference championships this fall, winter, [and] spring,” Swain said. “It’s good to have something to play for, and that’s what’s really important.”
Year two of the acceptance process is compliance review. After year three, Point Park will be eligible to compete in NCAA tournaments and championships. This rule applies to all NCAA athletics.
In the MEC, Point Park will be joining and competing against universities such as Fairmont State, Wheeling, West Virginia State, and Concord.
“All these schools that are NCAA Division II that we will compete against are in close proximity, so our student athletes don’t have to go far to compete against them,” Swain said. “But now when students look at those other schools, they will also look at us, because we would be considered a peer to them.”
Fall athletics begin next week with several soccer exhibition games. Schedules are set and can be viewed on pointparksports.com.
Students receive free admission to all Point Park games with a Point Park ID.
