New England Sends Six to NCAA Dance

Five New England-based schools have been invited to the 2011 NCAA Division I Men’s Soccer Championship after the tournament bracket was unveiled Monday.

Providence College (R.I), Brown University (R.I.), Boston College (Mass.), Dartmouth College (N.H.), Fairfield University (Conn.), and the University of Connecticut all earned bids to this year’s Division 1 tournament.

Providence went 10-7-1 under head coach Chaka Daley and finished sixth in the Big East Blue Conference. They are among the 12 schools in the Big East that earned spots in the tournament. Staying in the Big East, Connecticut, who was ranked as the number 1 team in the country earlier this fall, finished in third place within the Big East Blue Conference with a 17-3-1 record.

Brown and Dartmouth finished as Ivy League co-champions after both finished with 14 points in league competition. Although Brown sported a 10-4-3 record, Dartmouth, who went 8-5-4 on the season, earned a hard-fought 0-0 draw against Brown over the weekend to secure a share of the title.

Boston College went 14-6 on the season, and finished sixth in the Atlantic Coast Conference this year. The ACC sent six teams to this year’s tournament.

Fairfield went 12-4-1 this year and were 2011 Metro Atlantic Athletic  Conference Champions. Freshman Jordan Ayris led the club with eight goals and three assists.

Providence and Dartmouth have been pitted against each other for their first round match, which will take place on Thursday afternoon at Glay Field in Providence. The game will kick off at 1:00pm.

Also taking place in Providence on Thursday is Brown’s first round match against Fairfield, which will take place at Stevenson Field at 7:00pm.

The Eagles and Huskies each earned first round byes and will await the results of the Colgate-Rutgers and Stony Brook-Monmouth matchups, respectively, to find out who their second round opponent will be.