Albany State’s women’s socceer to join Peach Belt as associate member

ALBANY — In the fall of 2019, the Peach Belt Conference will welcome the Albany State women’s soccer team as an associate member.

“We’re thrilled to welcome Albany State as an associate member,” commissioner David Brunk said in an Albany State news release. “Athletics director Sherie Cornish Gordon and head coach Alexandria Pickrell have done an outstanding job of creating a program that will be a good fit for our conference.”

ASU is a member of the SIAC, but the conference does not sponsor women’s soccer. ASU enters one of the top conferences in the nation, with three different PBC teams ranked among the top 25 during the 2017 season.

The conference sent three teams to the NCAA Tournament. PBC women’s soccer teams have won the NCAA Southeast Region in five of the past seven years; Columbus State has reached the NCAA Final Four in two of the past three years, including an appearance in the 2015 national championship game.

“We are ecstatic to join the Peach Belt Conference as an associate member,” Gordon said in the release. “It has been a strategic priority since the fall of 2016 to identify a home for the women’s soccer program. Our goal is to provide great opportunities for our athletic teams to compete for conference championships, and joining the PBC strategically positions our women’s soccer team with a great opportunity. We look forward to working with Commissioner Brunk, his staff, and the fellow institutions of the PBC.”

Pickrell, who played collegiate soccer at West Florida, was a part of two UWF teams that competed at the 2012 and 2013 National Championships hosted by the Peach Belt. West Florida won the national title in 2012. She enters her second year as head coach at ASU and said she is excited about the move.

“On behalf of our student-athletes and staff, we are very excited and honored to join the Peach Belt Conference,” Pickrell said in the release. “The PBC is an outstanding conference with a tradition of excellence in soccer that the Golden Rams are proud to become a part of. We are excited and would like to thank Commissioner Brunk and our Athletics Director Sherie Gordon for their support of the women’s soccer program at ASU.”

As a full NCAA Division II member institution, the Albany State women’s soccer team will immediately be eligible to receive the NCAA automatic bid given to the tournament champion. The Golden Rams will play a full conference schedule in the fall of 2019; ASU student-athletes will be eligible for all conference honors and awards.

Albany State will become one of 12 schools playing women’s soccer in the Peach Belt. Albany State added women’s soccer as a sport last fall and will be one of four institutions that holds an associate membership in the Conference. Embry-Riddle, Nova Southeastern and Florida Institute of Technology are associate members in men’s and women’s track and field.

Albany State faced three members of the Peach Belt during their inaugural season last season: Clayton State, Georgia College and Young Harris College.