01:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, May 3, 2005

New England college football traditionalists who worried that the balance of power would slide south when the old Yankee Conference admitted Delaware and Richmond in 1986, Villanova in 1988 and William & Mary and James Madison in 1993 will be able to mumble "I told you so" tomorrow.

The Colonial Athletic Association, headquartered in Richmond, Va., will officially announce that it is adding football and absorbing the entire Atlantic 10 Football Conference in 2007. The operating agreement between the A-10 and its 12 football-playing members expires after the 2006 campaign.

Discussions between the CAA and the A-10 have taken place for several months. Five A-10 football schools already are CAA members and would have left the A-10: James Madison, the 2004 NCAA I-AA champion; Delaware, the 2003 national champion; William & Mary, Hofstra and Towson. Northeastern voted in 2004 to leave America East and will join the CAA July 1, a year early, so its football team also would have dropped out of the A-10.

The CAA invited the remaining six A-10 members to join. Richmond's trustees voted this year to support a switch to the CAA from the A-10. Richmond is a former CAA member. That would have left Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire and Villanova looking for a conference to join or a program to join theirs.

"There really wasn't an option," said Tom McElroy , director of athletics at URI.

Since the A-10 took over football from the Yankee Conference in 1997, the power has clearly shifted from New England to the Mid-Atlantic region. Boston University dropped football. Connecticut moved up to Division I-A. Towson joined the league last season. Delaware is a perennial contender, William & Mary and Villanova are usually dangerous, Richmond has fielded some strong teams, and JMU went all the way last fall.

College football also is more popular in Delaware and Virginia than it is in New England, another reason joining forces with the CAA makes sense for the remaining A-10 programs. Scheduling is yet another reason.

"I like the idea that we'll still have a game with a Boston school (Northeastern) and we'll still go to Long Island (Hofstra). We'll still play the same traditional opponents," McElroy said.

URI coach Tim Stowers agrees.

"From our perspective, we'll be playing the same people. I don't see much difference. I think we'll have a north and a south division," he said.

The CAA will instantly become the strongest I-AA conference in the nation (the A-10 already is) and among the strongest in Division I. The A-10 is rated higher than the I-A Mid-American Conference.

The other all-sports CAA members are George Mason, Drexel, Old Dominion, North Carolina-Wilmington and Virginia Commonwealth. Georgia State will join in July. Old Dominion officials have discussed adding football, and McElroy said the league will have to determine how many football teams it wants and whether to establish a period of time for current members to add the sport, much as the Big East did for UConn and Villanova.

Football will become the 11th sport the CAA sponsors for men. It sponsors 11 for women.

Losing football will relegate the Atlantic 10 to I-AAA status for NCAA governance purposes, which means it will wield less clout than an all-sports conference.

Spring football Brandon Markey scored on a one-yard leap with 5 seconds left for a 16-13 White triumph over Brown in football at Brown Stadium. The Whites drove 80 yards in the last three minutes for the deciding score. Quarterback Joe DiGiacomo completed four of six passes, one a 33-yarder to tight end David Turner with less than 10 seconds to play. That set up Markey's game-winner.

All-Ivy tailback Nick Hartigan scored on a 45-yard run, and Ivy rookie-of-the-year Steve Morgan kicked two field goals for the Browns. Robert Ranney kicked a field goal, and Turner caught a five-yard TD pass for the Whites.

At URI, Brian Giannecchini 's 41-yard field goal with 2:08 to play gave Blue a 17-14 triumph over White.

Freshman Joe Casey rushed for 134 yards and a touchdown for the Blues. Fullback Chad Campbell carried for 48 yards and quarterback Jayson Davis for 44 yards and a touchdown for the Whites.

Blue quarterback Sean Arlan of East Providence passed for 26 yards and a touchdown, a 20-yarder to Nick Delgrasso . Davis completed 9 of 13 passes for 106 yards.

On brink of title Rhode Island College needs only one victory in its doubleheader with Eastern Connecticut today to win its first outright Little East softball regular-season title. The Anchorwomen (21-13, 10-2) clinched at least a share of the crown when they swept Western Connecticut and split with PLymouth State last week. This is RIC's seventh consecutive 20-win season but its first as regular-season champion.

RIC will host the Little East Tournament Thursday through Saturday.

Roger Williams lost the Commonwealth Coast Conference Tournament final to Endicott, 5-4, but still finished 30-10, a school record for wins. Endicott is 33-2.

PC senior Nicole Batholomew pitched a no-hitter at Seton Hall Saturday but lost, 3-0, when the Pirates scored two runs in the first inning on a wild pitch and a sacrifice fly and a run in the fourth when D'Arcy Djakalovic stole home. Seton Hall's Megan Meyer tossed a one-hitter for her 22nd win.

PC dropped a doubleheader at St. John's Sunday and finished 33-20, 5-13 in the Big East.

Babson defeated Wheaton, 5-4, Sunday for its first NEWMAC softball championship and a berth in the NCAA Division III Regional. Wheaton was the defending NEWMAC champ.

NCAA qualifiers PC's Mary Cullen won the 5,000 college championship at the Penn Relays and qualified for the NCAA Regionals with a time of 16:20.63. Fiona Crombie finished third in the steeplechase (10:35.63) and qualified for the regionals. Deidre Byrne won the 1,500 at the Brown Invitational Sunday in a regional qualifying time of 4:21.46.

On the men's side, Martin Fagan, Pat Moulton and Joe Dionne qualified for the regionals in the 5,000.

The Friars will run at the Big East Championships this weekend at Rutgers.

URI's 4x200 relay team (Jen Strysko, Amber Price of Westerly, Kristen McGill and Destiny Woodbury of Providence) set a school record (1:41.62) at the Penn Relays. Strysko, Price, Woodbury and Janet Pailes of North Attleboro ran a 4:06.24 in the distance medley, the second-fastest time in URI history.

The URI men's 4x200 relay (Darnell Douglas, Eric Groce, Brendan Lamboy of Warwick and Ashad Agyapong ) set the school record of 1:25.31.

URI will run for its fifth straight men's and fourth consecutive women's title in the A-10 Championships at Richmond this weekend.

Friars are top seeds Providence (8-7, 7-1) is seeded first for the MAAC lacrosse championships this weekend at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. The Friars will play fourth-seeded Marist Friday. The winner will play the winner of the Mount St. Mary's-Manhattan semifinal in the championship game Sunday. PC won the MAAC regular-season title with an 8-6 triumph over Canisius Saturday. The win was the 50th for Chris Burdick , who has coached the Friars for seven years.

Players of the week LITTLE EAST TRACK: Jonathan Garcia of UMass-Dartmouth won the 110-meter hurdles in 14.8 seconds at the Alliance/Little East Championships and qualified for the NCAA Division III Championships. He also won the 200 (22.68) and anchored the 4x100 relay that finished third.

LITTLE EAST SOFTBALL ROOKIE: RIC first baseman Christie Lotti was 10-18 (.555) with three doubles, two triples and a home run in a 3-1 week.

COMMONWEALTH COAST SOFTBALL: Roger Williams second baseman Kristin Cerreto was 9-for-22 in a 3-3 week.

COMMONWEALTH COAST TENNIS: Salve Regina freshman Robbie Norton lost only three games in four sets at No. 1 singles against Curry and Roger Williams in the CCC Tournament. He is the co-player of the year. Salve's Jason Lago was 3-0 at No. 3 singles and won a match in doubles against Roger Williams and is the top rookie.

ATLANTIC 10 BASEBALL PITCHER: URI's Zach Zuercher of Warwick struck out 11 in 9 1/3 innings but did not get credit for the win in a 1-0, 11-inning victory over Saint Joseph's. Zuercher has pitched 18 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings, a URI reord.

ATLANTIC 10 TRACK: Sarah Thornton of URI finished second in the discus at the Brown Invitational with a personal best of 140 feet, 4 inches.

Roundup Salve Regina rolled over Roger Williams, 8-1, for its fourth consecutive Commonwealth Coast men's tennis championship. Roger Williams finished 15-6, a school record. . . . URI golfers won their Invitational and will host the A-10 Championships this weekend at Newport National. . . . URI (24-15, 15-3) can clinch its third straight A-10 East baseball championship this weekend by taking two of three from Fordham. The URI Rams have a two-game lead over the Fordham Rams. . . . Brown swept a doubleheader from Yale Sunday and finished 14-6 in the Ivy League. The Bears needed Dartmouth to sweep Harvard yesterday to force a tie and a playoff with the Crimson for the Rolfe Division title. . . . CCRI's baseball team was 22-5 overall, 8-0 in Region XXI, after a 4-3 win over UConn-Avery Point.

Contact Mike Szostak at mszostak [at] projo.com