The NCAA Women's Volleyball Championship refers to one of three

championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this system ...

s in

women A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or Adolescence, adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female hum ...

's indoor

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

contested by the

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

since 1981: *

NCAA Division I Women's Volleyball Championship The NCAA Division I women's volleyball tournament is an annual event that leads to the championship in women's volleyball from teams in Division I contested by the NCAA each winter since 1981. Texas won the most recent tournament, defeating Louis ...

NCAA Division II Women's Volleyball Championship The NCAA Division II women's volleyball tournament is the annual event that decides the championship contested by the NCAA. It determines the national champion of Division II women's collegiate volleyball. It has been held annually since 1981, ty ...

NCAA Division III Women's Volleyball Championship The NCAA Division III women's volleyball tournament is the annual event that decides the championships in women's volleyball from teams in Division III contested by the NCAA each winter since 1981 except in 2020, when all D-III championship events ...

From 1970 through 1980, before the NCAA governed women's collegiate athletics, the

Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women The Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) was founded in 1971 to govern collegiate women's athletics in the United States and to administer national championships (see AIAW Champions). It evolved out of the Commission on Interc ...

alone conducted the women's collegiate volleyball championships. Volleyball was one of twelve women's sports added to the NCAA championship program for the 1981-82 school year, as the NCAA engaged in battle with the

AIAW The Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) was founded in 1971 to govern collegiate women's athletics in the United States and to administer national championships (see AIAW Champions). It evolved out of the Commission on Interc ...

for sole governance of women's collegiate sports. The AIAW continued to conduct its established championship program in the same twelve (and other) sports; however, after a year of dual women's championships, the NCAA prevailed over the AIAW acquired its membership. In the NCAA Women's Volleyball Championship, separate tournaments are conducted for Division I, Division II, and

Division III In sport, the Third Division, also called Division 3, Division Three, or Division III, is often the third-highest division of a league, and will often have promotion and relegation with divisions above and below. Association football *Belgian Thir ...

institutions. This differs from NCAA men's volleyball because there are far more NCAA member schools offering women's volleyball. Until the 2011–12 school year (2012 men's season—NCAA women's volleyball is a fall sport, while men's volleyball is a spring sport), there was no official divisional structure in men's collegiate volleyball; all men's teams, regardless of their divisional affiliation, were eligible to compete for the NCAA championship. Even today, the divisional structure in men's volleyball is truncated, with a National Collegiate Championship (previously the only men's tournament) for schools in Divisions I and II, plus the newly created Division III Championship. In the sport of

beach volleyball Beach volleyball is a team sport played by two teams of two or more players on a sand court divided by a net. Similar to indoor volleyball, the objective of the game is to send the ball over the net and to ground it on the opponent's side of the ...

, the NCAA conducts a women-only, all-divisions

. The inaugural championship was held in spring 2016.

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*
NCAA Women's Volleyball

References

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See also