NCAA Regional Rankings
 
INDIANAPOLIS – The Slippery Rock University women's soccer team was one of the nine teams from the Atlantic Region to be listed under consideration for postseason play when the NCAA Division II Women's Soccer Committee announced its first set of Regional Rankings Wednesday.
 
The first set of rankings is an alphabetical list of the top nine teams currently under consideration for the postseason. The Women's Soccer Committee will announce the first ranked-order list next Wednesday, Nov. 5. The Regional Rankings will ultimately be used to determine which teams from each of the eight NCAA regions will qualify for the 2025 NCAA Division II Tournament.
 
The Division II women's soccer playoff field features 56 teams from across the nation, with each region receiving a pre-determined amount of berths based on access ratio.
 
The Atlantic Region has seven spots in the NCAA Tournament this season as the conference champions from the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference and the Mountain East Conference will earn automatic berths in addition to five at-large selections.
 
The first set of rankings includes seven teams from the PSAC and two from the MEC. Inside the PSAC, there were three schools in the initial rankings from the PSAC Western Division and four from the PSAC East.
 
The NCAA Committee uses a plethora of data to determine the regional rankings, including the win-loss records, a weighted strength of schedule, wins against teams above .500, multiple performance indicator metrics that weigh the quality of wins and losses, head-to-head competition and more. The NCAA also generates a "performance indicator" score for each team that includes much of the data mentioned above and still uses the "Rating Percentage Index" (RPI) as a metric to determine the strength of each team.
 
Slippery Rock enters its game Wednesday night at Clarion with a 10-3 overall record and the third-best RPI and performance indicator scores among all teams in the region. The only two teams ahead of SRU in both of those metrics are Gannon (13-1-1) and West Chester (10-1-3). SRU is 2-1 against the other teams in the first set of rankings, going 2-0 against Indiana (Pa.) and 0-1 against Gannon.
 
The Rock are looking to return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2019. Slippery Rock was a staple in the NCAA Tournament under current head coach Noreen Herlihy during her first stint at SRU. She led the program to the national playoffs nine times between 2001 and 2013.
 
Slippery Rock is currently locked in a tight battle with Gannon and IUP for the top spot in the PSAC West standings with each team having just two or three games remaining in the regular season. The Rock entered the day Wednesday with a two-point cushion, but Gannon has already earned a win to take a one-point lead in the division. A Rock win Wednesday night at Clarion would move SRU back into the division lead, while a tie would put The Rock level with Gannon atop the standings heading into their meeting Saturday in Slippery Rock.
 
A look at the nine teams included in the first set of regional rankings can be found below.
 
ATLANTIC REGION RANKINGS
Oct. 29, 2025 (first set of rankings is alphabetical)

Rank	Team	W-L-T	NCAA PI*
-	Bloomsburg	9-3-2	18.000 (7)
-	Fairmont State	11-1-2	19.000 (4)
-	Gannon	13-1-1	20.400 (1)
-	Indiana (Pa.)	11-2-2	18.333 (6)
-	Kutztown	9-4-1	18.000 (7)
-	Shepherd	6-1-5	16.917 (10)
-	SLIPPERY ROCK	10-3-0	19.308 (3)
-	West Chester	10-1-3	20.214 (2)
-	West Virginia State	11-3-1	18.867 (5)

*NCAA Performance Indicator score and current rank in the region




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