In March, St. Francis College in Loretto, Pennsylvania introduced that it was shifting from NCAA Division I to NCAA Division III in the summertime of 2026. This week, the college introduced the primary enlargement of its athletics program since then – launching a males’s swimming program for the 2026-2027 season, their first new staff launched throughout the transition to Division III.
St. Francis described the addition as “symbolizing a dedication to development, aggressive excellence, and scholar alternative.”
“Our transition to Division III and the introduction of males’s swimming displays a deeper dedication to the values which have formed Saint Francis for generations. As a Catholic, Franciscan establishment, we see athletics as an extension of our mission—to kind folks of compassion, excellence, and repair. This new addition is a step ahead in the direction of that future,” stated Fr. Malachi Van Tassell, T.O.R., Ph.D., President, Saint Francis College.
“This announcement is greater than the addition of a sport—it’s a logo of ahead progress,” added Jim Brazill, Director of Athletics. “Males’s swimming embodies our imaginative and prescient for a vibrant, student-centered Division III expertise the place athletic alternative, educational focus, and neighborhood connection thrive collectively.”
The boys’s swim staff would be the college’s twenty third intercollegiate athletics program, and can be a part of its different applications within the Presidents’ Athletic Convention (PAC). The PAC was cited as one of many advantages of becoming a member of Division III, because it permits its groups to compete in opposition to groups inside a 3 hour radius of its house in western Pennsylvania.
The PAC is at present house to seven males’s swimming & diving applications:
Grove Metropolis
Saint Vincent
William & Jefferson
Allegheny
Westminster
Chatham
Bethany
Phil Hurley, the present head coach of the ladies’s staff, will take over the boys’s staff as properly. He has led this system for the final six seasons, and a Third-place end on the Northeast Convention Championships are one of the best of his tenure to date. The varsity can be launching a seek for a full-time assistant coach to help each applications.
The varsity at present doesn’t sponsor a varsity diving program.
Saint Francis sits on a 600 acre campus and had enrollment of 1,962 (together with undergraduate, graduate, and grownup diploma) in fall of 2024. 1,382 of these have been undergraduates in response to federal information: 826 ladies and 556 males.
The groups observe in a 25-yard, 6-lane on campus pool on the Stokes Natatorium.
